Clarification requested: Foley, Franks and Studds

[LynneSin]

I remember the Barney Franks issue and as far as I was aware of, this was not with underage minors, just a guy running a prostituion ring out of Frank's home in DC (and please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Gerry Studd's issue was that he did have consensual sex with a 17-year-old back in 1973 but the information was not revealled until 10 years later. But because the partner was underage it was still in violation and Studd was censured.

If anything, I just want clarification because the "MEME" the right-wingers are going to come back with is that both Franks and Studds were 'guilty' but still kept their job and re-elected after the scandal.

[WilliamPitt]

1. Foley quit

His party is in the majority (as the Dems were with Frank and Studds), they would have censured Foley but ultimately protected him...but he quit. The reporter called him for comment, and within two hours, he quit.

So.

There's more to this that "gay sex." This guy is probably trying to mail himself to the Sea of Tranquility.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

2. Past incidents=why the GOP should have been more proactive in this matter

That's my argument.

If there have been past incidents, I have no interest in comparing them to this, unless it is in the context of: Then the GOP leadership should have taken the "overly-friendly emails" threat more seriously to protect the kids.

[Mike Daniels]

6. From what I read, the Studds incident led to an overhaul of the program

but I guess perhaps things became complacent because I don't recall all that many scandals since then regarding pages.

From the general facts, Studds' situation sounds just as damning as Foley since actual sex was involved in his case and at that time 17 was still under the age of consent.

While Studds should have had the decency to resign vs. throwing out privacy issue aguments, in the end, it was his district that chose to keep returning him to office.

[WI_DEM]

3. from my perspective the biggest problem is that the GOP leadership

knew something was up and sat on it for a year!

[TheWraith]

4. Actually, with Studds the teen was of the age of consent

Which is 16 in DC. As I understand, when it came out, Studds basically stood up and told the rest of the congress to go fuck themselves, that as long as it was two consenting adults it was nobody else's business and they had no right to censure him.

[Mike Daniels]

8. According to Wikipedia (which could be wrong)

At the time of the Studds incident 17 years old still fell under the age of consent.

[TheWraith]

16. Shrug. Not an expert, just relaying as I heard it. NT.

[cali]

9. And he was goddamn

wrong. It was an abuse of power at the very least, and reprehensible.

[NYCGirl]

5. What about Dan Crane (R-Ill.)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Crane

[Deep13]

7. here's the difference

Franks didn't do it. Someone else did. Franks' district was well aware of that when they returned him to office.

Studd, long time ago and I really don't remember. I think it is fair to say that the Ds were not trying to make excuses for him. Anyway, they had to go back twenty years to find an example.

Foley was soliciting minors in the custody of Congress and it seems that the R leadership was enabling it. This wasn't one guy like Studd, but a criminal enterprise. The Ds did it too! Not really and not THESE Ds. This is just part of the culture of corruption. Anyway, now we know that the Rs are part of this whole post-Christian amoral secular society too.

[cali]

10. I like Frank

but he did a hell of a lot wrong, and it was all reported at the time. Gobie testified that Frank knew of his activities. In addition, Frank used Congressional letterhead to write to Gobie's probation officer, fixed dozens of tickets for him, and paid him for sex. All questionable activities at best.

[Deep13]

11. Oh. It was a long time ago so my memory of it is fuzzy.

[LynneSin]

13. But was there anyone underage involved

:shrug:

[Tanuki]

14. No, people are mixing him up with the Gerry Studds case,

either deliberately or accidentally.

[LynneSin]

15. In politics there are no accidents

Like a post I made about the Foley story that the NYTimes reported on Saturday. The only picture associated with the article was that of Foley's opponent (who no one would recognize) and John Kerry (who everyone would recognize)

[cali]

19. No.

But that doesn't excuse it.

[Tanuki]

12. Since the Frank incident involved an adult male prostitute,

why aren't the right wingers at least equally outraged about the shenanigans involving Jeff Gannon if they are going to make some kind of point about Frank?

[RB TexLa]

17. Their "Contract"

On the first day of their majority, the Republicans promised to hold floor votes on eight reforms of government operations:

* require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress;
* select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
* cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
* limit the terms of all committee chairs;
* ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
* require committee meetings to be open to the public;
* require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
* and implement a zero base-line budgeting process for the annual Federal Budget.

[Duppers]

18. thanks for bringing this up....if they're talking about it

We should not accept what Studds did. To make excuses for him is being hypocritical.

I don't care what the 'legal' age of consent is or was. When a kid is under 18 and there's a huge age difference, this kind of behavior is ethically wrong in my book.

Barney's behavior never crossed this line.

(I'm not a g.d. freeper but am only trying to be consistently logical and objective here.)