Mark Foley

These days, the Senate doesn't pass anything remotely controversial, let alone pass it unanimously. But last month they did-- a bill by Tim Scott (R-SC), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) to make lynching a federal hate crime.

This is what the Republican Culture of Corruption Looks Like In 2018With future Speaker Nancy Pelosi's connivance, Denny Hastert-- then Speaker, currently in prison for raping underage boys-- protected alcoholic Florida Congressman Mark Foley (a "nice guy") from ever having to face charges from dozens of young men-- congressional pages-- that he had sex or tried to have sex with them.

Most of the pages and other boys Mark Foley was having sex with were in their late teens. He was careful to bring them to states where whatever age they were was the legal age of consent. Mark's smart. And, exerting some kind of power over a 17 year old doesn't seem nearly as big a deal as what the guy who was protecting Foley was doing. The guy who was protecting Foley was then-Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) and what Mr.

 Billy Bush, Donald Trump and Days of our Lives actress Arianne Zucker. Zucker was apparently the subject of all the crude remarks. That bus Bush is standing next to?

By the early 2000s pretty much everyone on Capitol Hill had a good idea that flamboyant Florida Republican Mark Foley was spending a lot more time with teenagers than men his age normally did. Not everyone knew he was screwing underage male congressional pages. But Rahm Emanuel did. Emanuel knew for certain for as long as the GOP leadership knew, at least year.

By now, everyone knows the story of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado-- first explained at this blog in last June-- but the way Trump treated her was not unique to his attitude-- and actions-- towards women he did business with.

When Florida Republican Mark Foley was caught molesting underage male pages, the establishment circled the wagons around their likable colleague and made sure he wasn't charged with years of raping underage boys but just with sending naughty electronic messages.

Almost a decade ago, Blue America was toiling away on behalf of school teacher and union member Dave Lutrin, running for Congress in the Palm Beach area of Florida, pretty red district then represented by hypocritical Republican closet case Mark Foley. We knew that sooner or later Foley would slip up-- they always do-- and expose himself and become very defeatable.

You may have read about Arkansas District Court Judge Joseph Boeckmann this week in relation to how he was able to manipulate young white males who came in front of him, offering them lighter sentences in return for sex.

In 2006 Blue America was backing progressive John Laesch's campaign against Speaker Denny Hastert. Rumors of Hastert's predatory behavior towards underage boys were rampant, including more than one letter from boys who claimed to have had sex with him, including a male prostitute who kept saying he would testify and then that he didn't want his name used. It went back and forth for almost the entire campaign. But, in the end, he refused to let us use his name and the Laesch campaign had no way of confirming if there was any truth behind the allegations.