Politics Blog

The question is what is next for Florida’s 16th Congressional District. Fortunately, there is much detail spelled out in Florida law, so Republicans are in a better position in Florida compared to Texas.

The first question is who goes on the ballot and who picks that person. Here is the Statute:

In the event that death, resignation, withdrawal, removal, or any other cause or event should cause a party to have a vacancy in nomination which leaves no candidate for an office from such party, the Department of State shall notify the chair of the appropriate state, district, or county political party executive committee of such party; and, within 5 days, the chair shall call a meeting of his or her executive committee to consider designation of a nominee to fill the vacancy. The name of any person so designated shall be submitted to the Department of State within 7 days after notice to the chair in order that the person designated may have his or her name on the ballot of the ensuing general election. If the name of the new nominee is submitted after the certification of results of the preceding primary election, however, the ballots shall not be changed and the former party nominee’s name will appear on the ballot. Any ballots cast for the former party nominee will be counted for the person designated by the politicalparty to replace the former party nominee. If there is no opposition to the party nominee, the person designated by the political party to replace the former party nominee will be elected to office at the general election. For purposes of this paragraph, the term “district political party executive committee” means the members of the state executive committee of a political party from those counties comprising the area involving a district office.

So, the local Republican Party Officials pick who will be running for office. The bad news is that Foley’s name stays on the ballot.

As a Party we have l;earned some things from the Delay fiasco in Texas. Because of the problems with a write in candidate campaign, Governor Perry called a special election to coincide with the General Election. Governor Bush can do the same thing:

(2), a special election or special primary election shall be held in the following cases:

(4) If a vacancy occurs in the office of member from Florida of the House of Representatives of Congress.

Here are the mechanics of calling that “special primary election:”

(3) Whenever there is a vacancy for which a special election is required pursuant to s. 100.101, the Governor, after consultation with the Secretary of State, shall fix the dates of a special primary election and a special election. Nominees of political parties other than minor political parties shall be chosen under the primary laws of this state in the special primary election to become candidates in the special election. Prior to setting the special election dates, the Governor shall consider any upcoming elections in the jurisdiction where the special election will be held. The dates fixed by the Governor shall be specific days certain and shall not be established by the happening of a condition or stated in the alternative.

URGENT: The Republican Party can fix this mess and get Foley off the ballot. Governor Bush can call for a “special primary election” no later than October 24, 2006. That should then allow for the removal of Foleys name!!! Foley stays on the ballot because he was on the prior primary certification. This District needs a special primary called by Governor Bush. Please help get the word out.

– Oak Leaf

The pro-amnesty Republicans said it could not be done:

Leaving President Bush’s proposed immigration overhaul in disarray, Republicans on Friday won congressional approval for fencing nearly one-third of the Southwest border and prepared to head into the November elections with a tough border security message.

Rushing to finish work before leaving on a six-week campaign recess, the Senate passed, by a vote of 80-19, and sent to President Bush a bill for more than 700 miles of fencing. The House approved the bill in mid-September.

The part of the article I like best:

Fox has condemned it as “shameful.”

Hmm, I also liked:

Leaving President Bush’s proposed immigration overhaul in disarray,

— Oak Leaf

This whole mess with former Congressman requires a little breathing room to sort out the facts and determine where everyone stands.

First, we know that ABC broke the story of lewd messaging between the Congressman and a sixteen year old male Congressional Page:

A 16-year-old male former congressional page concerned about the appropriateness of an e-mail exchange with a congressman alerted Capitol Hill staffers to the communication.

The Drudge Report provides messaging details between the Congressman and a seventeen year old:

im not 18 till feb 23

There are no articles alleging sexual contact, however should that eventually be reported has any “crime” been committed? No, the age of sexual consent in the District of Columbia is 16:

Age for Sexual Consent: 16
D.C. Code § 22-3001; D.C. Code § 22-3102

Is Mark Foley a married man? No:

Foley, 48, is not just unmarried;

Is Mark Foley a pedophile based on the above incidents? Not according to DSM-IV:

According to the DSM-IV definition, pedophilia involves sexual activity by an adult with a prepubescent child. Some individuals prefer females, usually 8- to 10-year-olds. Those attracted to males usually prefers slightly older children. Some prefer both sexes. While some are sexually attracted only to children, others also are sometimes attracted to adults.

It is very clear that these pages are not prepubescent.

So right now, we know as fact that Mark Foley is not a pedophile, he has not broken any sexual consent laws nor has he violated any marriage vows.

Is Mark Foley a gay man? The gay community thinks he is:

Foley, 48, is not just unmarried; several of his friends and former friends who are openly gay told the paper that Foley has presented himself socially as gay. And Foley has a record on gay issues that is uncharacteristically high for a conservative—the Human Rights Campaign gave him a score of 83 in the last Congress.

And he has been subject to being outed. The Washington Blade reported the following on July 09, 2004:

Despite Foley’s FMA opposition, Aravosis purported to out Foley as well, taking him to task for supporting President Bush, who endorsed the measure late last winter. Labeling Foley as “our latest closeted gay hypocrite,” Aravosis said Foley made the list for putting politics ahead of his own community by “whoring for an anti-gay president.”

As in the case with Mikulski, rumors that Foley is gay had long circulated within the Beltway, and local newspapers in South Florida — including the Express Gay News and an alternative newsweekly — cited his long-term relationship with a Palm Beach physician.

Mark Foley is simply a gay man who has been forced out of office by the Democrat Party. I wonder what gay activists think of this, as they have a lost a strong vote of support?

Disclaimer: I never cared for Mark Foley because his politics were not of my liking. Further, I have no respect for any individual that puts him/herself into a position that opens themselves to attack. Mark Foley knew he had political problems long before the primary and had an opportunity to fade away. In my personal opinion, such behavior is plain wrong.

The bottomline as a Republican is that Mark Foley broke no laws and he is not a pedophile as claimed by the leftists but rather is simply a gay man. Mark Foley’s “Crime?” Being a Gay Republican. In order to preserve this seat for Republicans, those facts must be spoken everyday until the election in order to help the new nominee. Being gay does not equal pedophile and that is what is going on at leftist sites right now. If that does not alienate the gay vote that normally votes democrat, what will?

— Oak Leaf

I don’t like rewarding Gore with attention. I keep promising myself not to bother talking about his lunatic remarks when they come because it only seems to get him the attention he desperately craves, a trait Ithink he learned from his former boss. But I can’t resist.

- Drudge -
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a “significant contributor to global warming!”

Are you kidding me? How does he say this and keep a straight face, or the staff not giggle at him? Seriously would you work for this man?

It’s gets better.

Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a “full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth.”

Gore showed computer-generated projections of ocean water rushing in to submerge the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, parts of China, India and other nations, should ice shelves in Antarctica or Greenland melt and slip into the sea.

Gore summed up the briefing by walking away screaming is a girly voice “I’m telling you we’re all going to die.. we’re all gonna die… Ahhhhhh..”, a common occurrence according to those close to Gore sources reported.

Ok, so I made up the last paragraph but I bet you couldn’t tell given the news in the last few years. Next it’ll be exercise that is contributing to global warming making it that much harder to parody these people.

Oh, and we’re not done yet.

Read

After a series of Q& A with the audience, which had little to do with global warming and more about his political future, Annan bid “adios” to Gore.

Showing those attending were not really that interested in why he was there, just about politics. Annan is probably praying this was the last time the two will have meet.

Then, Gore had his staff open a stack of cardboard boxes to begin selling his new book, “An Inconvenient Truth, The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It,” $19.95, to the U.N. diplomats.

Hey that wouldn’t be Gore trying to make a buck off a supposed coming disaster is it? Apparently the paid speaking engagements at the Real Estate Wealth Expo (scroll down) are not paying that well. I’ll never understand why Apple lets this man near it’s boardroom, actually I do understand it but if they want political clout and a green image there are much better candidates.

Tipper get that man on a diet please.

— KnightHawk

RCP’s Jay Cost agrees with my somewhat bleak assessment of GOP prospects in November:

As everybody has been shifting their estimates toward the GOP, I have found myself shifting toward the Democrats a bit. The reason is that there are a whole swath of GOP seats where, on an individual level, the party looks obscenely weak. I am thinking (in order of obscenity): TX 22, AZ 08, IA 01, CO 07, OH 18, PA 10, NC 11, IN 09, IN 08, IN 02. That’s 10 seats. Half of them look like “gimme’s” for the Democrats. That’s 1/3rd of what they need. That is a lot. I am starting to think that the performance of stronger incumbents in swing districts – FL 22, PA 06, PA 07, CT 02, CT 05 – is not so much a sufficient condition for the GOP to hold the House, but really more like a necessary condition.

And this, of course, was before Foley resigned. Here’s a fun question: just how many more Republican congressman are going to resign before Election Day and, as a consequence, essentially cede their seats to the Democrats? At this point, at least 20% of what the Democrats need will come from this types of seats alone. Make no mistake – this is bad news for the GOP. Tim Mahoney, the Democratic challenger, has no electoral experience and he is self-funding, but he has the cash to capitalize on this.

— PoliPundit

Oh boy,

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABC questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18.

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

I read the text of what he had written last night. Very, very creepy.

UPDATE by PoliPundit: Most important fact here:

Florida Republicans could replace Foley on the ballot.

— The Ace

On September 29, 1789, the final day of its very first session, the United States Congress passed “An act to recognize and adapt to the Constitution of the United States, the establishment of the troops raised under the resolves of the United States in Congress assembled” officially creating the military of the United States. To the men already serving on the frontier under orders of the Continental Congress, the change probably meant little.

Although the Constitution of the United States charged Congress with raising and regulating military forces, newly-elected House and Senate members delayed acting on this provision. Busy organizing the federal government and debating the location of the new Federal City, Congress neglected dealing with the issue of military forces until prodded by President and Commander in Chief George Washington.

Senate Sends Detainee Bill to Bush

Defense Budget Passed.

— KnightHawk

Fences work:

Members of the the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives agreed Monday at a reconciliation conference on the funding they would approve to boost border security as part of a $34.9 billion appropriations package for the Department of Homeland Security.

The bill allocates $1.2 billion to build 700 miles of security fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. The fence would involve advanced technology sensors and 1,800 towers built by Boeing and equipped with sensors.

…

It is certainly the case that in the long run of decades, generations and centuries, eventually long walls or border fences usually do come tumbling down. But they usually work very well indeed for a very long time first.

The Great Wall of China was famously breached three or four times over the millennia by hoards of barbarian invaders who did conquer China like the 13th century Mongols. But it worked very well for hundreds of years at a time in keeping them out. The German Army, or Wehrmacht, never breached the French Army’s Maginot Line in 1940. They had to go around it. In the fall of 1944, the defenses of the Wehrmacht’s own Siegfried Line, once it was fully manned, stopped even U.S. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army in its tracks and helped keep Nazi Germany in the war for another half a year.

In more recent times, the whole world knows that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989 during the collapse of communism in Central Europe. But it had bought time for the communists and kept East Germany from collapsing for more than 28 years before that finally happened.

Now in the 21st century, passive border defenses are in fashion again thanks to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. During his five stressful years as leader of the Jewish State, Sharon stopped the slaughter of more than 1,100 Israeli civilians, including a large proportion of women and children, by Palestinian suicide bombers by the straightforward expedient of building a massive security barrier, or fence, across the country to keep them out.

The fence continues to work well. Even when Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, lobs over low-tech, very short-range Qassem missiles at Israel over the fence, their cost in casualties so far has been negligible..

Sharon’s achievement not only defeated the Second Intifada, it also transformed the strategic assessments of nations and militaries facing guerrilla campaigns based from outside their own borders all around the world

Impressed by the Israeli example, India rapidly followed suit in building a security fence along the Line of Control in Kashmir. Indian security officials later said this fence cut the number of incursions by Islamist guerrillas operating from their havens in Pakistanby as much as 90 percent. The Indians have therefore pushed ahead with building another, even longer fence, around the nation of Bangladesh to cut back on Islamist guerrilla incursions from there.

Even Saudi Arabia has followed the Israeli example by building a massive security fence along its southern border with Yemen. Interestingly, the strategic purpose of the Saudi fence has much more in common with the U.S.-Mexico fence than with the Israeli one. The Israeli fence was built to choke off a vicious suicide bomber offensive against civilians. The Saudi fence, like the U.S. one, was built primarily to keep out a flood of illegal immigrants from a far poorer neighboring country to the south, and to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaida from being able to funnel agents and weapons at will across the frontier.

Via Mickey Kaus, who can’t resist gloating about the Senate vote on the Secure Fence Act.

– PoliPundit

Sorry guys but I can not participate in the comments but I thought I would throw out an Open Thread.

Hopefully, the other guests will keep this open thread bumped.

Here is a question that ties into other posts today.

Are we better off today because we held our ground and forced the Seante to submit to the House’s Immigration position?

— Oak Leaf

If the State can force it’s citizens what they can not eat, will a day come when they force us to take manadatory daily pills all under the guise of better health? Why not mandatory cholestoral pills to be distributed with every order of french fries?

A proposal to ban most artery-clogging trans fats from New York’s restaurants could save thousands of lives at little cost to restaurateurs, supporters of the initiative said on Wednesday.

But a leading industry group called for dialogue with city authorities to modify their “Orwellian regulation”, which comes as many fast-food restaurants are already trying to reduce transfats in response to shifting consumer demand.

— Oak Leaf