Free Republic

Ben Sasse and the rest of the GOP elite claim Trump is a menace who must be stopped “on principle.” Sasse and others have criticized Trump for not disavowing racists quickly enough (even though Trump disavowed racists repeatedly). Sasse has a bigger problem – he supported a pedophile. Some suspect he used his position of authority to enable abuse. Ben Sasse was in charge of supervising underage boys, who were later abused by members of Congress. Ben Sasse was a tutor in the Congressional page program from 1996 to 1998. The Congressional page program brings underage boys to Congress to...

“We need a new crew leader in the Senate,” former Congressman Mark Foley (R-WPB) told a recent meeting of the Martin County Republican club. This reporter asked the final question of the evening, namely, “What’s wrong with McConnell and Boehner…our readers and commenters on our conservative threads are furious with the Republicans…we gave them victories in 2010 and 2014 and nothing has changed...Boehner won’t stand up to Obama.” That’s when the West Palm Beach resident said it was time for a change in Washington. Foley suggested that John Thune, a newer, younger face, would move the party forward. “Boehner is...

Like most Americans, I'm infuriated at the child abuse scandal unfolding at Penn State. But unlike many other Americans, I'm not shocked, because as a Republican operative in Palm Beach County, I had an uncomfortable seat on the front lines of the Mark Foley page scandal. In both scandals, power trumped truth. Foley was always rumored to like young men. But there was also ample evidence, which is in everyone's best interests to deny now, that people from both sides of the aisle knew about Foley's predatory behavior well before his messages to pages became public. And the same is...

Former Congressman Mark Foley, diagnosed several weeks ago with an aggressive prostate cancer, will have surgery Friday morning to have his prostate removed. Foley, who was a Republican congressman from Palm Beach County for almost 12 years, said in a telephone interview that a battery of tests shows the cancer hasn’t spread beyond the prostate. But after consulting with medical experts and others who’ve had prostate cancer, he’s decided to have his prostate completely removed. He said the prognosis is for a speedy recovery, and he said he could be back at work as early as a week after the...

Former Rep. Mark Foley is trying to master the art of the comeback. Three years after the former Florida congressman resigned amid disclosures that he was sending lurid text messages to teenage, male pages on Capitol Hill, a scandal in which Foley was never charged with a crime, he is taking a step back into public life -- this time as a radio personality. "Foley on Politics" debuts Tuesday night on Seaview AM 960 in North Palm Beach. "We certainly looked at every aspect and every angle, and we thought the information aspect of what he brings to the table,...

“Outrage” is the talk of the Tribeca film festival. The documentary by filmmaker Kirby Dick claims that several politicians who vote “anti-gay” on political issues are actually gay themselves, and have had verifiable trysts with men. The documentary contains interviews with men who claim to have had sex with these “anti-gay” politicians. Of course, many liberal media outlets are trying to keep the identities of the politicians “outed” by Outrage a secret. Some claim that sexuality (even for politicians) is a personal issue that should not be made public without consent under any circumstances. That is sheer nonsense. In the...

As Obama passes his first 100 days in office, I find myself sad that we liberals have less and less to complain about. Guantanamo Bay is closing, good health care policy is in the works, and I no longer have nightmares about McCain invading my living room on top of an elephant as if he were a Carthaginian emperor. Nonetheless, liberals in 2009 still have more things to complain about than Holden Caulfield would, holding a broken Miley Cyrus record. One such complaint is homosexuality in America. This week's "gay controversy" surrounded Miss California and her Twitter-quarrel with Perez Hilton....

There have been so many scandals since October, 2006, the month that I launched this blog, that I just about forgot who Mark Foley was. I got an excited phone call yesterday from two friends, TV producer Richard Ayoub and talent manager Dolores Cantu, who were having lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sitting the next table over was Foley, who resigned just before the midterms after the revelation that he sent inappropriate e-mail messages to a congressional page. Ayounb and Cantu didn't know immediately recognize him until he told them he had once been in Congress. The jist of...

Two years ago, ABC’s Brian Ross broke wide open the scandal of Republican Rep. Mark Foley sending sexual Internet messages to Congressional pages. Foley resigned quickly, but that didn’t dampen the story. We reported "On the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening news programs, from the story’s emergence on Friday night, September 29, through Wednesday morning, October 11, the Big Three networks have aired 152 stories." On October 11's Good Morning America, news anchor Christopher Cuomo spoke insistently: "Less than a month before the elections and the Mark Foley scandal just keeps growing." Reporter Jake Tapper added: "This is...

On Monday, NewsBusters wondered how much coverage the sex scandal involving Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fl.) -- the Democrat Congressman who in 2006 won the seat previously held by the disgraced Mark Foley -- would get. Early indications suggest that as far as the television news outlets are concerned, the answer is "not much." In fact, though all three broadcast network evening news programs covered the Foley sex scandal when it was first revealed on September 29, 2006, not one of them felt that the man who replaced him admitting to having an affair with a former campaign staffer was at...

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...

Two years after Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s career imploded in a sex scandal, his successor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, faces allegations that he agreed to pay $121,000 to a former mistress who worked on his congressional and campaign staffs and was threatening to sue him. The allegations were first reported here by ABC News. Mahoney responded late this afternoon by calling for a House Ethics Committee investigation. Congress is in recess until after the Nov. 4 election. “I was notified this afternoon about a story that ran on ABC News‚ website reporting allegations about a former employee. While...

For the second consecutive election year, West Palm Beach has produced a potentially devastating congressional sex scandal – but this one involves a Democrat. ABC News reported Monday that Rep. Tim Mahoney — the Florida Democrat who replaced disgraced Republican Mark Foley in 2006 — paid $121,000 to a staffer with whom he had an affair. The news gives Republicans a desperately needed new line of attack just three weeks before Election Day. Mahoney, 52, paid former staffer Patricia Allen $61,000 — plus $60,000 in legal fees — after she threatened to sue him for sexual harassment and intimidation, the...

Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) is finding himself in an October sex scandal, about two years after his GOP predecessor Mark Foley was forced to step down in the wake of his own personal indiscretions. ABC News is reporting that Mahoney agreed to pay a $121,000 settlement to a former mistress who worked on his Congressional and campaign staff since his 2006 campaign. The story also reveals that Mahoney promised her a job at the consulting firm that handles his campaign’s media production. Some of the juicy bits excerpted from the ABC story

Rep. Tim Mahoney paid $121,000 to a former mistress who worked on his staff and sued him after he threatened her job when she tried to end the relationship, former and current staff aides told ABC News on Monday. Mahoney, D-Fla., won his congressional seat in 2006 after Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, was forced to resign in the wake of a scandal involving a congressional page. According to ABC News, Mahoney, who is married, started an affair with Patricia Allen while campaigning against Foley on a morality platform. Allen came on to his staff after he won the election...

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress Tim Mahoney Elected to Remove 'Ethical Cloud' of His Disgraced Predecessor, Mark Foley By EMMA SCHWARTZ, RHONDA SCHWARTZ, and VIC WALTER Oct. 13, 2008— West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen,...

Nearly two years after a Florida congressman abruptly resigned over sexually explicit messages he sent to a teenage House page, law enforcement authorities here have concluded there is “insufficient evidence” to charge him with breaking Florida laws. Commissioner Gerald Bailey of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who was asked in September 2006 to look into the conduct of the congressman, Representative Mark Foley, Republican of West Palm Beach, said Friday that investigators were hampered by Mr. Foley’s refusal and that of Congress to grant them access to Congressional computer files. The department was investigating whether Mr. Foley violated Florida’s...

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Law Enforcement Friday blamed federal justice officials, a U.S. House speaker and even Mark Foley himself for its failure to press charges against the disgraced former congressman involving the use of computers to solicit sex from minors. And even if FDLE had found grounds to charge Foley, the state did not launch the investigation until six months after the three-year statute of limitations had passed. "I am of course relieved ... the determination has been made that there is no probable cause to believe that I committed any crime," Foley said in a statement...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley isn't expected to face charges after a lengthy investigation into his lurid messages to underage congressional pages, two federal law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Teenaged congressional pages performed oral sex in front of their colleagues for weeks before they were caught and expelled from the program, according to a new report in Roll Call newspaper. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has pledged to reform the page program, which brings dozens of 15- and 16-year-old students to live and study in Washington, D.C., while working as aides in congressional offices. "As a mother and a grandmother, nothing is more important to me than the safety and security of our House pages," Pelosi said in a statement. The page program has been reportedly reformed at least...