Foley sex scandal may get bigger

One of the pages who received inappropriate messages from Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-Louisiana). Alexander was notified of the problem, and he brought it to the attention of the House leadership (Dennis Hastert and either Tom Delay or Roy Blunt) 10-11 months ago.

And they did nothing about it.

UPDATE September 30, 2006: Alexander notified Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois), who says "We ordered Congressman Foley to cease all contact with this former House page to avoid even the appearance of impropriety." Also informed was Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who blocked a vote yesterday on a resolution from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi calling for a preliminary investigation into the matter and the Republican leadership's response to it by the House Ethics Committee. Boehner nixed the latter part, and a motion was passed to investigate Foley's conduct but not the Republican leadership's handling of the matter.

It's also now been verified that Dennis Hastert was told about this issue "months ago".

Dirty Politician: Rep. Mark Foley resigns

That was quick. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida), whose emails to a former Congressional page asking him for a photograph and his birthday were made public yesterday, has offered his resignation today. It seems there were also a lot of sexually oriented instant messages from "Maf54."

This guy was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. It looks like he may be prosecuted under laws he helped pass.

The timing of this resignation is such that the Republicans will probably not be able to replace Foley's name on the ballot. (For more details, see here.)

Another dirty Republican politician down, a bunch more to go.

Specter and McCain voted for a bill they believed to be unconstitutional

Both Arlen Specter and John McCain have publicly stated that they thought there were unconstitutional provisions in the Military Commissions Act which they voted for.

That's an admission of acting contrary to their oath of office. Neither of these men is fit to serve.

(A previous post on the Military Commissions Act and Arizona Representatives' votes on it is here.)

More White House involvement in Abramoff corruption

Ken Mehlman arranged for a $16 million contract to be granted to the Mississippi Choctaw tribe (an Abramoff client) in exchange for their donations to the Republican Party.

Ralph Reed contacted Karl Rove on behalf of Jack Abramoff to kill the nomination of Angela Williams to a post at the Department of the Interior which would have had oversight over Abramoff client the Northern Mariana Islands.

Mehlman, Reed, and Rove belong in jail with Abramoff.

(See also this previous account of Mehlman and Rove ties to Abramoff.)

The ineffectiveness of TRUSTe

The TRUSTe program is supposed to certify that a website has a reasonable privacy policy. But Ben Edelman has cross-referenced TRUSTe certifications with SiteAdvisor ratings, and found that sites with TRUSTe certifications are twice as likely as those without to be listed as "untrustworthy" in SiteAdvisor's database--meaning that they send out spam, distribute spyware, etc.

Edelman calls out four particularly notorious sites that have or have had TRUSTe certification: Direct-Revenue.com, Funwebproducts.com, Maxmoolah.com, and Webhancer.com. All four are heavily involved with spyware. Direct Revenue and Maxmoolah have had their TRUSTe certifications revoked, but should never have been certified in the first place if TRUSTe was doing the validation they should have been doing.

TRUSTe has long been criticized by anti-spammers for giving certifications to organizations that don't deserve them.

Ryan Singel has raised similar questions about TRUSTe's reliability.

White House had more contact with Abramoff than previously disclosed

From TPM Muckraker:

Hundreds of contacts between top White House officials and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates "raise serious questions about the legality and actions" of those officials, according to a draft bipartisan report prepared by the House Government Reform Committee.

The 95-page report, which White House officials reviewed Wednesday evening but has yet to be formally approved by the panel, singled out two of President Bush¹s top lieutenants, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, as having been offered expensive meals and exclusive tickets to premier sporting events and concerts by Abramoff and his associates.

In total, the committee was able to document 485 contacts between White House officials and Abramoff and his lobbying team at the firm Greenberg Traurig from January 2001 to March 2004, with 82 of those contacts occuring in Rove's office, including 10 with Rove personally. The panel also said that Abramoff billed his clients nearly $25,000 for meals and drinks with these officials during that period.

UPDATE September 29, 2006: The New York Times has picked up the story with more details, some of which are also reported in TPM Muckraker.

Congress grants president the right to torture, indefinitely detain

Today the Senate, following the House, voted to legalize the right for the government to engage in physical interrogation techniques that most people would consider to be torture and to detain individuals permanently without criminal charges by designating them "unlawful enemy combatants," even if they are U.S. citizens who have never left the country. As Glenn Greenwald puts it, Congress has legalized tyranny.

Both of Arizona's Senators (John McCain and Jon Kyl) voted for the bill, S. 3930.

Arizona's Representatives voted as follows on the detainment bill, H.R. 6166 (the Senate bill is S. 3930):

In favor:

Jeff Flake (R-District 6)
Trent Franks (R-District 2)
J.D. Hayworth (R-District 5)
Jim Kolbe (R-District 8)
Rick Renzi (R-District 1)
John Shadegg (R-District 3)

Against:

Raul Grijalva (D-District 7)
Ed Pastor (D-District 4)

Once again, a completely partisan vote in which the Republicans demonstrate their disregard for this constitutional republic. You can find the complete House vote results here.

UPDATE September 29, 2006: Ed Brayton has more at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

The founders of this country would have found this grounds for revolution.

UPDATE October 1, 2006: I fully expect the courts to overturn this, since the U.S. Constitution allows only two conditions for the temporary suspension of habeas corpus in Article I, Section 9 ("when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it").

It is also worth noting that there is some simplification, above. The designation of "unlawful enemy combatant" (UEC) in the bill is made by "a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

Also see Richard Epstein's testimony to the Senate (PDF) urging them to kill this bill, which they disregarded.

Martinsville, VA mortgage scam

The small town of Martinsville, Virginia (population 14,925) now has many residents named as defendants in a massive civil suit from Countrywide Home Loans regarding a $40 million mortgage scam. The New York Times reports:

In a tightknit neighborhood, where people’s social lives often revolve around their churches, Beulah Penn and her daughter, Sharon, were well-connected and trusted. Beulah Penn was a lay minister in a local church; her daughter, Sharon Penn, dressed hair.

Using these connections, according to a recent lawsuit, the two women and another relative in Indianapolis perpetrated one of the largest mortgage frauds in American history, victimizing dozens of local residents and, according to sources with knowledge of the accusations, at least $40 million in fraudulent loans — perhaps even twice that amount.

“Looking back, maybe it sounded too good to be true, but everyone knew them, and my friends went to church with them, people I been knowing for 10 years,” said Timothy Jacobs, a 29-year-old worker in a fiber-optics factory who discovered recently that he owed $200,000 on two houses in Indiana. “They said they’d be responsible for everything. Now everyone’s probably going to end up filing for bankruptcy.”

The Penns persuaded friends and members of their church to join an "investment club" to purchase homes in Indiana. They were told they didn't have to contribute any money, but would be paid $2,000. The scammers arranged to purchase homes at market rates, get bogus inflated appraisals and mortgages at the higher amount, then pay the market rate for the home and divert the rest of the funds to themselves.

One of those who joined the "investment club" found out about how the scam worked when he was turned down for a $1,000 loan from his credit union to buy Christmas presents--he discovered he owned five homes in Indiana with mortgages adding up to nearly $1 million, all of which were in default.

I expect a lot more cases like this will make the news as the housing market continues to decline.

John McCain's reason for voting for a flag desecration amendment

From a letter to me dated August 11, 2006, in response to a letter I sent him criticizing his vote:

Thank you for expressing your views about the issue of flag desecration. I share your concern in this matter.

I believe we have an inviolable duty to protect the right of free speech--one of our most precious inalienable rights and the linchpin of a healthy democracy. I do not believe, however, that guaranteeing respect for our national symbol by prohibiting "acts" of desecration impinges on political "speech."

As long as citizens are free to speak out on any matter and from whatever point of view they wish, as our forefathers intended, it does not seem burdensome to me that we accord some modicum of respect to the symbol of those precious freedoms for which so many of our countrymen have laid down their lives.

Some view these efforts to protect the flag as political demogoguery or empty symbolism, unworthy of the attention it receives. I see the issue differently. The flag represents each and every one of us, regardless of race, religion or political point of view. It is a point of unity in the midst of our great diversity. Tolerating desecration of the flag is silent acquiescence to the degeneration of the broader values which sustain us as a free and democratic nation--the ramifications of which are far more profound than mere symbolism.

For these reasons, I have support [sic] a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. I voted for such language in previous Congresses, but unfortunately, the tally has always fallen short of the 67 affirmative votes necessary for approval. Additionally, I have cosponsored legislation to statutorily provide protection for the flag in a manner that will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Again, thank you for your interest in this important issue. I hope you will continue to share your views with me on this or any other matter of concern to you and our nation.

Sincerely,
/s/
John McCain
United States Senator

Senator McCain states that "Tolerating desecration of the flag is silent acquiescence to the degeneration of the broader values which sustain us as a free and democratic nation." But this completely ignores the fact that it is not only possible but certain that voices will loudly speak out in criticism of flag desecration--that's not silent acquiescence, that's fighting bad speech with good speech, which is the whole point of the First Amendment.

McCain explicitly recognizes that the flag is a symbol. It's a symbol that can be represented in art, language, binary data, and a Penn and Teller illusion. (Penn & Teller's illusion raises the question of whether the symbolic desecration of a symbol is any different from an actual desecration of a symbol.) To place limits on the contexts that symbol can be placed in or on transformations of that symbol is to place limits on free expression, and to place limits on the principle of freedom of speech that lies behind the First Amendment.

By his willingness to make a special exception for this symbol, McCain is doing damage to a constitutional principle. His position on this issue is just as wrong as his position on trying to protect government from the consequences of violating the First Amendment in his vote for the PERA Act, and just as contrary to his oath of office.

Latest Skeptics' Circle, #44

The latest Skeptics' Circle, #44, is hosted at Salto sobrius.