First Openly Gay Congressman dies... hero or villain?

I work for the Federal government, and I can tell you that, in addition to being pornography, gambling isn't allowed on the office computers either. It's an exactly equal offense.Is it your contention that anything you can't do on an office computer makes you into a serial killer?Statistically, the most significant predictive factor in the backgrounds of serial killers and sadistic rapists isn't pornography; it's a strict religious upbringing.

Well, if money is good, why can't I gamble at work? Probably the same reason gambling is. Why wasn't that clear from my post? Serial killers eat food, too. Do they have a problem with food?It seems to me that the problem serial killers have is that they kill people. What you're doing is just guilt by association. Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't realize we were playing the game where we make up our own facts.

Because, like gambling, it's a waste of company time.Plus, porn and gambling sites are notorious sources for malware, so they introduce security issues. Asserted but not proven. Serial killers aren't called "serial killers" because they look at porn; the problem they have that they are named after is the fact that they kill people (serially, that is, one after another.) And involved in food, involved in breathing. Every one of those guys was in prison, too. Does prison create serial killers?It's guilt by association, NJ. Serial killers do something, therefore that something "creates" serial killers.It's certainly not anything an intelligent person should mistake for a real argument. The position of the FBI is most definately not that pornography creates serial killers.

Not really. There's a legitimate business reason to check your email in a world where business can be done through email. I check my email all the time at work for exactly that reason - it's one of the ways that I can be contacted for work reasons. You aren't listening. It's not different; that's the point. It's not porn; it's porn and gambling. Why the hard-on about gambling too if it's just about it being inherently wrong to look at nudie pics? Gosh, genius, I'm glad you're here to tell me these things. I mean I only manage the office's computers single-handedly, and all; what could I possibly know about the reasons the USDA doesn't want us to look at porn and gambling? And a refrigerator full of food. Sometimes a computer.Do computers make people be serial killers? ...what? Non sequiter much? Who said anything about the ACLU? What does what mean? I thought I wrote a perfectly clear statement in English. You're the one who's having trouble staying on-topic, staying clear. What on Earth does the ACLU have to do with anything? And food as well. That doesn't impeach food as a cause of serial killers. Why would it impeach porn?There's a three-pronged test that purports to be predictive of serial killers, looking at childhood behaviors (called the MacDonald test):1) Bed-wetting
2) Animal abuse
3) PyromaniaI don't see "looking at porn" on there, do you? Not even the FBI considers porn viewing predictive of sociopathy. Really? Do you drink soft drinks, junkie? Caffiene is a drug too, you know. I guess we can expect to find you passed out in a doorway with a needle in your arm some day, right? I mean it's all a "slow process", right?

He made what he was doing a crime. He's got no one to blame but himself.Somebody wrote an email to Josh Marshall, a blogger who I read, that basically said that the actions of Foley has given a lot of people who were finding themselves more and more opposed to the Republican party line and party policies a "safe space" to make public their disagreement. In other words opposing the House cover-up of Foley's actions is a completely unchallengable position - there's no way anyone could put forth an argument that "you don't support America in the war on terror unless you support the right of House leadership to cover up a creepy old man's passes at minors" - so it's an opportunity for a lot of people to repudiate the Republicans as a whole.Foley is a flashpoint. He's an excuse for people to recognize Republican failure on a host of other, more complex issues. There's really only one defendable position - Hastert and others are guilty of the cover-up of creepy misconduct - and, from that position, it's easier to countenance the repudiation of all the other Republican fuck-ups.

No, it's just that Republicans and their lapdogs are very good indeed at framing their opposition in a way that scares people from considering it. You can watch Tal and NJ do it here; all they do is parrot Sean Hannity: If you oppose the administration's handling of the Iraq war, you're a Saddam-lover. If you don't believe the state has an interest in suppressing the rights of gays, you're opposed to the traditional family. If you believe that the government needs a warrant to surveil American citizens, you hate America and you want the terrorists to win. If you don't think Congress should substitute it's own judgement over that of doctors in medical matters, you're clearly a baby-killing, euthanizing Mengele.If you don't believe a 40-year-old congressman has any business soliciting sex from minors, contrary to a law he himself passed, you're.... what? It's the one issue where the Republicans can't demonize the opposition, but God knows they've been trying. They've been falling all over themselves to blame George Soros, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and even the pages themselves - as well as the "shadowy gay Republican syndicate" - rather than come to terms with the fact that a congressman solicited sex from minors and the Republican leadership protected him. But this is the one issue where the electorate has been trained to see through the bullshit - trained, because it's the exact issue that Republicans took advantage of to seize power in the first place.

The IM's constitute criminal conduct, thanks to Foley's own legislation.How come that basic point keeps getting ignored? I feel like I've had to say that over and over again in at least 2 threads now. Washington DC holds the age of consent to be 16. Maybe it wasn't then, though. Are you sure he committed a crime? Seems like it's the same standard, or even lax standards for Republicans. Neither Stubbs nor Clinton broke any laws, and Ken Starr didn't really have the jurisdiction to investigate sexual activity in the White House. But the House leadership concealed Foley's activities for 5 years.

Well, wait now. What are you going to send Stubbs to jail for? I don't think he was soliciting any sex with minors via the internet.What about Denny Hastert, who protected and shielded Foley, with full knowledge of his behavior, for more than 5 years? Should he go to jail? Two different situations. Reynolds wasn't protected and shielded by the congressional House leadership. The reason for the greater media attention isn't because of media bias - that's ridiculous on its face - it's because the Foley situation is much, much worse. The Foley story is more juicy because it goes beyond just Foley. As far as we can tell, it goes all the way up to Karl Rove (what a surprise.) Fair enough, but I think there's a legitimate question as to whether or not Clinton could be expected to be actually under oath considering Starr didn't have the jurisdiction to investigate Clinton's sexual activity.And the question of whether or not recieving fellatio counts as sex is an open one. It differs from person to person. If people had wanted to know if the Clenis had been fellated, they should have specifically asked.

They're called "radios." I'm pretty sure you have one. I don't know. Do I sound like a pussy and refuse to challenge your egregious errors in fact?

Er, I guess you misunderstood. Alan Colmes is who was being called a pussy, not anybody else.

Then I'm the one who doesn't understand - when did it become against the forum rules to attack public figures?Is this the standard you're going to apply to your own posting when you talk about George Bush?

When rumors of Foley's misconduct began to emerge a few years ago, Foley decided to retire rather than besmirch the GOP with a big scandal (exactly what's happening now, in other words.)Rove demanded that he not retire, because they didn't want to lose a GOP seat. Rove put political power over the safety of pages. Your evidence? Websites like Homepage | Media Matters for America make it pretty clear that the media is pretty firmly in the buisness of reporting GOP spin as fact, so the assertion that the media is "by and large liberal" is just nonsense.The Foley scandal is juicy for the reasons I told you. It's just that simple, and appealing to non-existent "liberal bias" in the media won't change that. An investigation into financial dealings. Starr had absolutely no mandate to investigate Clinton's sexual dalliances. Few states even have sodomy laws anymore, and D.C. certainly didn't at the time. What oral sex may be in other states is irrelevant.I'm not saying it's not weasel language. But Clinton was never convicted of perjury, so he clearly didn't perjur himself. Multi-million dollar investigation by Starr, millions wasted, and no convictions or even indictments returned against the Clintons. Certainly, but so what? He didn't break any laws by doing so.

Ah yes. Described by Keith Olbermann the other day as "The Worst People in the World", for taking Ted Turner completely out of context.These people get the party line directly from Bush himself. They're little more than voluntary propagandists. You've never watched Hannity and Colmes? Hannity only suffers Colmes on his show because it's practically in Colmes' contract that he can't disagree with Hannity too much, and Hannity's little liberal-on-a-leash certainly isn't allowed to correct him or appear to know more than Hannity does.That was the point of my comment, to call Colmes spineless. Sorry if that went over your head, or worse, you felt it was targeted at you. If that happened I sincerely apologize.

Ha ha! I enjoyed that, I truly did.

I'm going on the record with an assertion that a discussion of liberal bias in the media, as a purported difference between the media reactions to the two situations stipulated, is still on-topic. All the time. And what I see is a consistent, misguided effort on the part of personally-liberal journalists to appear "balanced" by overcorrecting to the right.Your quote from the late, great Jennings is an example of what I'm taking about. Journalists have so internalized the Republican spin about "the liberal media" that they overcorrect to the right, and so when they interview Republicans who just sit there and lie, the reporters don't challenge them because they don't want to appear "liberal."You can see it over and over again, as Republican spin on issues is uncritically reported; the way everything good for Republicans is presented as evidence of Republican strength, but everything bad for Republicans is presented as an opportunity that Democrats will be too weak to take advantage of. It's the fictional metanarrative of Republican strength. Every situation becomes a chance for journalists to portray Republicans as strong and Democrats as weak, no matter what the facts are. It's subtle so I'm surprised you haven't noticed it. The stuff you think is "liberal bias in the news" is actually just the uncomfortable facts Republicans don't want you to know. Occasionally that stuff gets through.Read Homepage | Media Matters for America and you'll see what I'm taking about. I'm pretty sure it didn't. The original charter for the independant investigation stipulated that the purpose was for investigating the allegations surrounding Whitewater, not anything having to do with Clinton's sex life.I could be wrong, though. Or you could just be making up more of your own facts. Suppose that she did? I imagine that I'd be hurt and feel betrayed, be very angry, feel my marriage had been shaken. Feel that someone I thought I had been closer to than anyone had suddenly become a stranger to me.Maybe I don't have to imagine feeling those things; maybe what you describe actually happened. You'll never know. But regardless of how hypothetically angry and hurt and betrayed I might or might not have been, the law doesn't change. Adultery isn't illegal. You can't even pursue civil action. It's grounds for divorce but I don't see how it's grounds for impeachment. Even if it were happening to me. What, you're telling me that Congress took it upon itself because they felt bad for Hillary? Like, impeaching Clinton was supposed to be a personal favor for her? Clinton didn't cheat on any member of the Senate, you know. Personal feelings don't enter in to it, where I can see.(In the future you may wish to rethink arguing from a basis of "if it happened to you, you might think differently." Some of us don't use our personal emotions to determine what is right and wrong.)