Via Firedoglake…the unsurprises just keep on coming.  Here’s another republican operative and closet case, Matt Drudge, on the despicable predatory sexual behavior of…wait for it…teenage boys …

And if anything, these kids are less innocent — these 16 and 17 year-old beasts…and I’ve seen what they’re doing on YouTube and I’ve seen what they’re doing all over the Internet — oh yeah — you just have to tune into any part of their pop culture.  You’re not going to tell me these are innocent babies.  Have you read the transcripts that ABC posted going into the weekend of these instant messages, back and forth?  The kids are egging the Congressman on!  The kids are trying to get this out of him.  We haven’t got the whole story on this.

Well we’ve got the whole story on you Matt, now don’t we? 

You could say "well Drudge, it’s abuse of power, a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17 year-old beasts, talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the internet."  Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages.  This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen.  These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth.   Oh yeah.  Oh, I haven’t…they were talking about how many times they’d masturbated, how many times they’d done it with their girlfriends this weekend…all these things and these "innocent children."  And this "poor" congressman sitting there typing, "oh am I going to get any," you know?

Well those shameless young hussies.  Strutting their stuff in front of that poor closet case of a wack job republican congresscritter.  Maybe next congress they’ll put them all in burkas just in case there are any grown adults on capital hill who can’t fucking control their libidos, let alone can’t remember that part of being an adult is Fucking Setting A Goddamn Example!

Obviously the difference between an adolescent and a child is that the teenager is becoming sexually mature.  But the operative word there is becoming.  At Minimum it is not the prerogative of grown adults to indulge that sexual inexperience and immaturity, to push a kid’s buttons when the kid is only just discovering that the buttons are even there to begin with, for the sake of their own greedy selfish urges…I won’t even dignify it with that beautiful word desire.  Jesus Christ Almighty!  Adults are supposed to be teaching and encouraging kids at that stage in their lives how to Fucking Manage Their Sexual Nature Responsibly And Honorably not exploiting their inexperience, their naivety, their adolescence, for pleasure, like they’re some kind of sexual junk food.  At long last, at long fucking last, is there Anyone left in the republican party that knows how to be an adult?

I can see where a kid would be positively creeped out by what Foley was doing.  But I’m 53 years old now, and I can see something else perfectly well: how deliberately, how calculatedly Foley was pushing that kid’s buttons. There is no mistaking it for what it is.  Foley was taking sexual advantage of that kid…even if at that point he hadn’t laid a fucking hand on him.  I can see how a kid would be creeped out.  But as an adult I can see something more.  At our age (Foley is a year younger then me it seems) even a guy who has very little life experience knows perfectly well where those buttons are, and just how to push them.  That’s what’s so disturbing.  Foley is sexually manipulating that kid and the kid sort-of seems to realize it, but he’s still too young to really grasp what’s going on the way a mature adult can.

And the profound embarrassment lurking just behind that kid’s words are palpable to me.  Drudge it seems, can only see the surface bravado…but not the heart…of a kid.  Why is that not surprising?  Are they fucking all a bunch of sociopaths in the republican establishment?

It appears that at least some of the page boys were warned to keep a good safe distance from Foley.  That is…only the republican page boys…

GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001

A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk’s office.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."

…

Pages report to either Republican or Democratic supervisors, depending on the political party of the member of Congress who nominate them for the page program.

Several Democratic pages tell ABC News they received no such warnings about Foley.

Well isn’t that…unsurprising…

Via Atrios…  The True Blue Patriotic Christian Americans responsible for covering up Mark Foley’s behavior with teenagers (that would be House Majority Leader John Boehner and House Speaker Dennis Hastert) are planning a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, who by the way, recently settled a multimillion dollar lawsuit with a young mistress who accused him of abuse.  Pam’s House Blend had the details…

Rep. Don Sherwood reached a settlement Tuesday with a former mistress who accused him of abuse in a $5.5 million lawsuit, according to his lawyer.

Terms of the settlement between Sherwood, R-Pa., and Cynthia Ore, with whom he acknowledged a five-year affair, will remain confidential, said Paul Clark, a spokesman for Sherwood’s attorney, Bobby Burchfield.

"Attorneys for Cynthia Ore and Congressman Don Sherwood announced today that their clients have resolved their differences, and the lawsuit will be dismissed," Clark said, reading from a statement.

…Sherwood, a fourth-term congressman, is married with three daughters. He issued a statement this summer apologizing for the affair but denying he physically hurt Ore. He also said she never lived with him, which she had claimed in her lawsuit.

Let’s hear it for Family Values…

What does the Rep. Mark Foley’s resignation mean for the Republican Party?

The highest affirmative response, at 37.66 percent, is…

What Foley did is inexcusable, but if the U.S. is to win the war on terror, republicans must win in November.

Well what a coincidence.  As it turns out, 37 percent seems to be about the floor beyond which Bush’s approval ratings never seem to drop any lower, no matter what jackass thing he says or does.  Iraq.  Katrina.  A mountain of debt amid corruption and cronyism that would make Grant blush.  None of it seems to matter.  Bush never gets below the mid thirties in the polls no matter what.

Well now we now where that 37 percent is coming from don’t we?  This is the Bush power base talking.  They are the 37 percent of True Blue American Patriots who will vote republican, even if it means putting a grown man who hits on vulnerable teenage boys back into office…for the sake of…what was it again?  Oh yes…to bring America back to decent Christian Moral Values. 

Remember this the next time some republican starts yapping at you about liberal moral relativism.

Warning…the site I’m linking to here has a really obnoxious streaming video ad that comes up right over the news story after a couple seconds, and may bog down your computer severely.  Turn off Javascript before clicking on the link below.

It comes to this:  If the victim was killed because his killer wanted to rob him, it’s first degree murder and the killer gets life in prison.  But if the victim was gay and made a pass at his killer, then it’s manslaughter and a slap on the wrist…

Gay Motive Could be Difference in Years or Life

Gonzalez says back in 2003, he met Trevino on the street and went to his Central Fresno apartment to drink beer. But, he says he was shocked when Trevino made a pass at him and reacted by stabbing Trevino to death.

Michael Idiart, Defense Attorney, said "If you believe that pass, that sexual advance was made then I believe it’s going to come down to two choices– murder-two or voluntary manslaughter." Idiart says both men were drunk and his client killed Trevino in the heat of the moment.

The prosecution says Gonzalez only wanted to Rob Trevino, a factor that would make him guilty of first degree murder…

Dig it.  The robbery makes it first degree murder.  But the victim’s sexuality makes it voluntary manslaughter.  And drooling morons like Richard Cohen wonder why we’re fighting for hate crime laws.

Seems like I’ve been here before…

I think I’ll start a new cartoon strip…Life in Purgatory…  Or has it already been done?  Would Matt Groening object…?

Just another day in president I’m A Uniter Not A Divider’s America…

A hard-fought football battle between Melrose and Malden high schools was marred by post-game events Friday night, when an altercation near the field left two Malden students in the hospital.

Following the game, the Malden cheerleading squad exited through the crowd towards the team bus, according to Pat Ruggiero, Melrose director of health, physical education and athletics. According to police reports, a 17-year-old, male cheerleader from Malden alleged that an unidentified female teen from Melrose began harassing him with homosexual slurs.

When the cheerleader ignored the taunts, a male teen accompanying the female, described as a 17-year-old, white male with a lip piercing and wearing a black hat, allegedly punched the cheerleader in the face and several times in the chest.

…

The cheerleader was taken to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital. Another 17-year-old from Malden began hyperventilating during the incident, and was also transported to the hospital.

Pretty obvious what happened…right?  Hahahahaha!  You must be living on another planet then…

Administrators from both schools conducted an investigation of the incident and had a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss how to proceed. Following the meeting, administrators released the following statement: "It was mutually decided that this is an opportunity for a teachable moment," a press release states. "A diversity rally is being planned for Friday, Sept. 28 to take place concurrently at both schools to speak out against ignorance and promote diversity."

Melrose Superintendent Joe Casey said that five students were interviewed during investigations, and only three or four teens were involved in the actual altercation. He said the students would be disciplined, but no punishment had been determined as of press time Wednesday.

"Neither school feels this rises to the level of being a hate crime," Casey said. "I think what took place was a lot of bad judgment, with a scuffle that followed."

[Emphasis mine]  Okay…what the fuck?!  A student, perceived to be gay, was beaten badly enough to be taken to the hospital after being repeatedly fag baited by the girl friend of his attacker.  Another student who witnessed the attack also had to be taken to the hospital.  And this isn’t a hate crime?  Ah…no.  It’s a Teachable Moment.  Right.  Let’s teach the gay students of both our schools that we don’t think beating the living crap out of them amounts to a crime.  Just…bad judgment. 

It’s been decades now since I saw that "For Sale" sign on your house.  I can measure the years that have passed in all the little messages I’ve stuck in this or that random bottle, and tossed out into this ocean of time ever since.  Hello?  Hello?  Are you still out there…somewhere…? 

You know it’s a bad time for America, when the survivors of the Soviet gulags start sharing their jokes with us. Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and ersatz psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities, shares us this one in Sunday’s Post …

One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."

Hahahaha…Get it?

This joke, whispered among those who trusted each other when I was a kid in Moscow in the 1950s, is perhaps the best contribution I can make to the current argument in Washington about legislation banning torture and inhumane treatment of suspected terrorists captured abroad. Now that President Bush has made a public show of endorsing Sen. John McCain’s amendment, it would seem that the debate is ending. But that the debate occurred at all, and that prominent figures are willing to entertain the idea, is perplexing and alarming to me. I have seen what happens to a society that becomes enamored of such methods in its quest for greater security; it takes more than words and political compromise to beat back the impulse.

Kinda makes you wonder why we fought the cold war anyway, if only to eventually become what the Soviet Union was, if not in principle then in practice. You can call a nation whose single party rule decrees that anyone, even its own citizens can be arrested, imprisoned and tortured on the sole say-so of the party leader a lot of things, but a civilized nation isn’t one of them.

But behold George Bush’s America. Remember when republicans were always bellyaching about liberals and "big brother" government? Well…it all turned out to be just a lot of empty rhetoric didn’t it? Look at what they’ve turned America into in just six short years of total control of the federal government.

Even talking about the possibility of using CID treatment sends wrong signals and encourages base instincts in those who should be consistently delivered from temptation by their superiors. As someone who has been on the receiving end of the "treatment" under discussion, let me tell you that trying to make a distinction between torture and CID techniques is ridiculous. Long gone are the days when a torturer needed the nasty-looking tools displayed in the Tower of London. A simple prison bed is deadly if you remove the mattress and force a prisoner to sleep on the iron frame night after night after night. Or how about the "Chekist’s handshake" so widely practiced under Stalin — a firm squeeze of the victim’s palm with a simple pencil inserted between his fingers? Very convenient, very simple. And how would you define leaving 2,000 inmates of a labor camp without dental service for months on end? Is it CID not to treat an excruciatingly painful toothache, or is it torture?

Now it appears that sleep deprivation is "only" CID and used on Guantanamo Bay captives. Well, congratulations, comrades! It was exactly this method that the NKVD used to produce those spectacular confessions in Stalin’s "show trials" of the 1930s. The henchmen called it "conveyer," when a prisoner was interrogated nonstop for a week or 10 days without a wink of sleep. At the end, the victim would sign any confession without even understanding what he had signed.

Vladimir Bukovsky speaks from first hand experience here. Listen to him. This is our future if the republicans can get away with this.

In 1971, while in Lefortovo prison in Moscow (the central KGB interrogation jail), I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense lawyer of my choice (the KGB wanted its trusted lawyer to be assigned instead). The moment was most inconvenient for my captors because my case was due in court, and they had no time to spare. So, to break me down, they started force-feeding me in a very unusual manner — through my nostrils. About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.

Go…now…read this man’s testimony.   

And…You know what…I’m laughing in the faces of everyone who is surprised, let alone shocked at what things have come to now. We all knew who George Bush was long before he dragged America into this sewer. Never mind the gaming of the vote in Florida. Tucker Carlson give us the telling glimpse of the man behind the folksy mask in the premiere issue of the now defunct Talk Magazine, back in the summer of 1999…

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn’t meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions like, "What would you say to Governor Bush?" "What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don’t kill me."

I must have look shocked – ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush – because he immediately stops smirking.

If that’s not stomach churning enough, Carlson also says that the exchange between Tucker and King that Bush mimicked never took place. It’s not the big lies Bush tells that you need to pay attention to…it’s the little needless ones like that. They say it all. This is the man the republicans put into the highest office in our land. This is the man they’ve all been marching in lock step with ever since. Now the republican congress of the United States of America is debating…as though a civilized nation considered such things even debatable…the use of torture, while the whole world watches. Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free…rooms are still available at Guantanamo Bay, and many other fine locations throughout the American Gulag Archipelago… There isn’t a gutter crawling despot in the world who can’t laugh at us now.

Is there anyone who read Carlson’s article, and who later watched Bush taking the oath of office, who didn’t see this moment coming?

Via a friend on MySpace…  people these days…

Murder trial set for wife and lover, who allegedly lived in closet before killing husband

Almost 16 hours after Martha Freeman’s husband was strangled and beaten to death in the couple’s upscale south Nashville home, she finally reported his death to police.

If her decision to wait was puzzling, so was the explanation she gave police: She claimed her lover, an illegal Mexican immigrant who was living in her closet, killed Jeffrey Freeman after Freeman discovered him snoring in his makeshift abode.
 
But prosecutors deny Martha Freeman’s version of events that led to the April 10, 2005, murder, and are expected to outline their theory during opening statements next week in the 41-year-old widow’s murder trial.

Freeman and her former lover, 36-year-old Rahael Rocha-Perez, are each charged with first-degree murder in the violent bludgeoning of Jeffrey Freeman. If convicted, they face life in prison.

When police responded to the 911 call that Freeman asked a neighbor to make, they found the body of Jeffrey Freeman, 44, lying face-down in the master bathroom.

His head, which had sustained multiple blunt-force trauma injuries, was wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag and the rest of his body in a sleeping bag. A medical examiner’s preliminary examination also detected possible signs of ligature marks around his neck.

Let it be said Freeman had provided for her boyfriend…

Metro Nashville Police Department detectives also found the closet that Martha Freeman claimed her lover lived in for about a month before her husband’s death.

The 2-by-8-foot storage space contained a foam pad, pillows, blankets, three loaves of bread and several objects of diversion, including a Nintendo GameBoy, a radio, and several adult magazines.

Investigators also found an "overnight bag," which contained lingerie and pictures of Martha Freeman in various states of undress.

Swear to god if I hear One More Jackass yap at me about how same sex relationships are unstable I am going to punch them in the face…

Sherman…set the Wayback Machine for 1971…

1. Who were your best friends in school?
Bob…Glenn…Mike…my art class pals…most of the stage crew…

2.What sports did you play?
I was a 105 pound five-foot, eight wirey gangly adolescent…what do you think? I avoided sports like the plague.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
Didn’t get my first car until a year after High School. I rode my bike.

4. Friday nights where were you at?
A friend’s house usually.

5. Were you a party animal?
Not really. The parties really didn’t start until college, and even then I only went with a few select friends. I was never really a party animal. I just liked hanging out with my friends.

6. Were you considered a flirt?
Hahahahahah! I was so shy it was painful to watch. It’s sure painful to remember.

7. Ever skip school?
Only Junior High…because of the bullying. I loved High School. It was like night and day from Jr. High. The teachers were good to me and actually took an interest…my classmates were all great people…those were some of the best years of my life.

8. Were you a nerd?
Yeah. An art nerd. A science nerd. A photography nerd. I was somewhat politically wonkish (those were the Vietnam/Johnson/Nixon years after all…) Hence my fondness for political cartooning…

10. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Never. I was never that kind of trouble maker.

11. can you sing the fight song?
We didn’t have one. Our class motto was Apathy,

12. Who was your favorite teacher?
Frank Moran, my art teacher all through High School. Best teacher I ever had.

13.Favorite Class?
Art. Of course.

14. What was your school’s name?
Charles W. Woodward.

15. School mascot?
The Wildcat.

16. Did you go to Prom?
Gay kids couldn’t take their sweethearts to the prom back in 1971.

17. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
If I could do a few things differently. Particularly regards a certain someone…

18. What do you remember most about graduation?
Graduating. There were those in mom’s side of the family who said I never would (having all that wicked Garrett blood in me and all…)

19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
A certain someone. His nickname was…

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?
Not sure what that means. I had my photographs and political cartoons plastered all over the school. I did them both for the student newspaper (ironically enough named The Advocate…so I can honestly say I’ve been published in The Advocate…) and had about fifty of my photos printed in my senior yearbook.

21. Did you have a job your senior year?
No. During the previous summer I worked at a fast food joint…the now defunct Burger Chef.

22. Where did you go most often for lunch?
My pals would sneak off campus to Gino’s. You weren’t supposed to do that and I was too much of a wuss to follow.

23. Have you gained weight since then?
Not much until I turned 38. Then some random bit in my profile flipped and now I have to work hard at keeping it off.

24. What did you do after graduation?
Worked for Industrial Photo for a while and tried to make it as a professional photographer. Then I went back to college.

25. When did you graduate?
1972

26. Where are most of your classmates?
Here and there all over the country. Most of them have moved out of the central Maryland area.

27. Are you going to your ten year reunion?
Er…I’m 53 now. I went to the 20. There was no 30 year reunion. Remember, our motto was Apathy.

28. Who was your home room teacher?
Ummm…. Trying from memory here….Frank Moran for sophomore year…Mr. Gooden for Junior…and I think Mr. Ochie again for senior.

29. Are you with your High School Sweetheart?
Gay kids weren’t allowed to have sweethearts back in 1971.

From Deltoid at Science Blogs…   Remember when the Smirking Chimp said he was going to restore integrity to government…?

Paul Thacker has the story in Salon:

In February, there were several press reports about the Bush administration exercising message control on the subject of climate change. The New Republic cited numerous instances in which top officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and scientists at the National Hurricane Center sought to downplay links between more-intense hurricanes and global warming. NOAA scientist Thomas Knutson told the Wall Street Journal he’d been barred from speaking to CNBC because his research suggested just such a link.

At the time, Bush administration officials denied that they did any micromanaging of media requests for interviews. But a large batch of e-mails obtained by Salon through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that the White House was, in fact, controlling access to scientists and vetting reporters.

The best bit is this:

When NOAA press officer Laborde was contacted to discuss the e-mails, he denied that interviews were subject to approval from White House officials. Confronted with his own e-mails, however, he said, "If you already knew the answer, why did you ask the question?"

Maybe he wanted to see if your nose grows when you repeat the white house storyline Kent.

Looks like this is going to be a protesting weekend…  This comes from another MySpace friend.  Please pass it around if you know anyone in the area.  I’ll be there.