"We need to send a message to Eliot Spitzer and Mike Bloomberg: End luxury decontrol and keep our homes affordable. Vote Row E."You can take the "Count On Me" pledge at:- Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tennant Association President Al Doyle
"I'm proud to vote on the Working Families line -- to not only support the best Democrats but to encourage them to have the courage of their convictions on progressive values."You can join Gloria and thousands of others who have taken the "Count on Me" pledge to vote for Eliot Spitzer on the Working Families ballot line, Row E, at:- Gloria Steinem, Author/Activist
"I support the WFP because affordable housing is my top priority and no one fights for affordable housing like the WFP."You can take the "Count On Me" pledge at:- U.S. Representative Nydia Velasquez
"I support the Working Families Party because they represent the values I've fought for my entire life – good jobs for New Yorkers, health care we can afford and a secure retirement."Listen to Carl talk more about his support for the Working Families Party and take the "Count On Me" pledge at:- former New York Comptroller Carl McCall
"I'm voting Working Families because it's the best way I know to cast a vote for fair funding for public schools."Cynthia Nixon will be voting for Eliot Spitzer on the Working Families Party ballot line, Row E.- Sex and the City star and education advocate Cynthia Nixon
Pete Seeger and the WFPSounds good to us, what do you think?
In these critical midterm elections – with so much on the line – a disastrous war in Iraq; the continuing erosion of our bedrock rights and liberties; and deepening economic inequality . . . the great singer and activist Pete Seeger has written a powerful letter on behalf of the Working Families Party (WFP) and its slate of candidates on the ballot in New York.
The WFP aims to send a strong antiwar message to the politicians, and it has updated and re-recorded Seeger's Vietnam-era classic, Bring 'em Home as part of its "Bring Them Home" campaign.
In his letter Seeger writes, "Here in New York, voting on the Working Families line is the best way to tell the politicians, bring them home, bring them home." Seeger quotes a key verse of his song to capture the spirit of the WFP message: "the world needs teachers, books and schools . . . And learning a few universal rules."
In addition to ending the war, the WFP agenda calls for universal healthcare, affordable housing, a living wage and closing the income gap through progressive taxation. The WFP claims an organized and diverse bloc of voters committed to economic populism, and it uses its electoral power to push major-party politicians to follow its agenda. Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Eliot Spitzer, solicited Working Families as his first endorsement.
By pulling the lever for the WFP (Row E on the ballot), voters can support a candidate while also making a clear statement that the WFP and its antiwar stance represent their values.Take the Bring Them Home pledge.
"When you vote on the Working Families Party line, your vote carries a distinctive message. Start bringing American men and women serving in Iraq back home. Right now," said WFP Executive Director, Dan Cantor.
With Spitzer far ahead in the polls, and real and justified disappointment among progressives about Clinton's position on the war, there is a concern that New York's voter turnout might be low. But for those committed to ending this war, and sending that message loud and clear to Clinton and her fellow-Democrats – show up for this election and vote for Spitzer and WFP candidates in down ballot races.
As Seeger reminds in the close of his inspiring letter, "Our votes do count. And if we vote to bring the troops home, they count even more."
"The [Working Families] party sent an Internet antiwar commercial via e-mail last week to more than 100,000 New York voters, urging them to vote for Democratic candidates on the Working Families Party ballot line - as opposed to the Democratic Party line - as a way of sending a message that they opposed the war. The e-mail missive includes a letter from the rock musicianTake the "Bring 'em Home" pledge at:BobPete Seeger supporting the party's effort, which it calls "Bring Them Home."
Party leaders said they wanted to hold Mrs. Clinton accountable for voting in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq, as well as other candidates whom they endorsed, like Mrs. Clinton, and who initially supported the war. Mrs. Clinton's name will appear on both the Democratic Party line and the Working Families Party line on the Nov. 7 ballot.
"Our difference with Senator Clinton is a difference in degree - her phased redeployment doesn't go far enough, fast enough," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party."
"Nevertheless, leaders of the Working Families Party, hoping to play a small but crucial role in this fall's Congressional elections, have started an effort to swing unaffiliated voters to Democratic candidates in three tight Congressional races.It's a good article; in New York the 24th and 29th Congressional Districts are the focus of Take Back Congress, though the article leaves out the work we're doing to drive up turnout in every contested Congressional race. If you want more background, read about our upstate victories, including how the WFP provided the margin of victory to elect Brian Higgins to Congress from Buffalo in 2004.
The party is focusing on unaffiliated voters in New York's 24th and 29th Congressional Districts and Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District, which all have a Democratic candidate cross-endorsed by the Working Families Party. Both New York and Connecticut allow "fusion" elections in which candidates may run on more than one party line.
In New York's 24th District, Michael A. Arcuri, a Democrat, is battling State Senator Raymond A. Meier, a Republican; and in Connecticut's 5th District, State Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Democrat, is challenging Nancy L. Johnson, the Republican incumbent.
Working Families is financing direct mail, door-to-door canvassing and phone banks in those districts. In New York's 29th Congressional District, the party will begin a direct-mail effort on behalf of the Democratic candidate, Eric Massa, who is challenging Congressman John Randy Kuhl Jr., the incumbent Republican.
The tight focus on upstate, unaffiliated voters is something of a departure for the Working Families Party, which was founded by a coalition of labor unions and community organizations in 1998. Its supporters are most heavily concentrated in the New York City area, where the party has worked largely in support of liberal Democratic candidates. But party officials said that polling they conducted but did not release showed that a large number of independent voters in the three districts supported views traditionally associated with liberal Democrats, like being in favor of universal health care and in opposition to free trade.
According to the poll, the party said, many of those surveyed said they believed that both major parties were indifferent to such concerns, and that they might be open to voting for a Democratic candidate on a minor party line if the candidate had their values.
"People see our message about jobs and health care not as a left-wing message," said Dan Cantor, the party’s executive director. "They put it dead center in focus groups. Trade deals, universal health care. These independent voters are like incipient progressives."
Mr. Cantor also cited past efforts by the party, like its work in 2002 on behalf of Representative Tim Bishop of Suffolk County, as evidence that the party may prove able to provide candidates with crucial voters in tight races. Mr. Bishop, who ran on the Democratic and Working Families lines, beat a Republican incumbent by about 2,500 votes; he earned 2,700 votes on the Working Families line. Of those 2,700, more than half came from people who also voted to re-elect Republican Gov. George E. Pataki.
"Having that extra line, giving independents a place to go, and having them work to get out the vote, all of that was very helpful to me," Mr. Bishop said in an interview.
The party will spend at least $400,000 — a third of it donated from New York’s Democratic Congressional delegation — on the effort, a large amount for the party, though a relatively small expenditure given the millions of dollars being spent by the Democratic and Republican campaign committees and the candidates themselves."
Protest music has been around for thousands of years. It just leaks out every so often and helps make history.
Divisions and inequality founded on race and class are more enduring, but the most important, immediate issue facing our country today is the war in Iraq."Eliot Spitzer's lock on the governor's mansion is so tight Marist didn't even survey that race in their latest poll of state contests. Luckily, Quinnipiac did—and found the attorney general with a 73-21 lead over someone named John Faso. This is good news for Eliot Spitzer, but not-so-good news for people who support Eliot Spitzer but want their help to matter, like the Working Families Party, which has (as usual) cross-endorsed the Democrat. (He also has the Independence party line) The WFP gains clout when its votes help major party candidates win, but it looks like Spitzer might just pull this one off all by his lonesome. So emails are going around asking voters to sign up at the WFP website "pledging" their vote to Spitzer, who "knows that every vote he gets on Row E . . . is a vote for progressive change to solve problems with our schools, health care, housing and jobs."We're building steam, and now you can get involved where ever you are. We've put a downloadable Count on Me pledge form online - check it out, print it out, get people you know to sign it and then send it in.
"Medicare for All, single payer health insurance."Pledge to vote on the WFP ballot line and let us know what change you want to see.
"Clean elections. No fraud in elections"
"A truly open legislative process"
"Environmental Sustainability"
"Support for the CFE school funding reform position"
Come hear Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon give you the inside scoop on why sexually explicit emails alone are never enough.15. NY-24, WFP endorses Mike ArcuriThe National Journal wants to know, "Anyone else sensing that the targeted New York congressional races are all turning away from the GOP?" We are, what do you think?
17. NY-26, WFP endorses Jack Davis
33. NY-20, WFP endorses Kirsten Gillibrand
36. NY-29, WFP endorses Eric Massa
57. NY-19, WFP endorses John Hall
58. NY-25, WFP endorses Dan Maffei
"Raymond Meier accepted over $25,000 this year alone from disgraced Congressmen who knew about Mark Foley's unacceptable behavior and did nothing. Either Foley's Republican colleagues don't know the difference between right and wrong, or worse, they chose political expedience over morality. Instead of siding with Americans across the country who are appalled by this failure of judgment, Raymond Meier continues to be bankrolled by his leadership rather than stand up for what's right"And here is Ray Meier's defense:
"In America, we don't judge people until an investigation is finished"That's Ray Meier - willing to look the other way, happy to do what he's told.
"And nowhere is that more true than in New York's 26th District, where the re-election prospects of four-term Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds - head of the Republicans' national House campaign organization - have seen a stunning reversal of fortune. The controversy over Reynolds' handling of information about Foley's activities has prompted CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the race to Leans Democratic from Leans Republican.In case you're curious, the other Republican-held seats that CQ rates as "Leans Democratic" are Mark Foley's and Tom DeLay's. Tom Reynolds and Tom DeLay, two incumbents who would do anything to win elections.
. . .
The Leans Democratic rating does not mean that Reynolds definitely will lose on Nov. 7: His past popularity, strong fundraising advantage and the Republican lean in his upstate New York district gives him at least a chance of reversing the tide running strongly against him.
But all of the momentum appears on the side of the Democratic nominee, factory owner Jack Davis, who had been running a vigorous underdog campaign even before the Foley scandal erupted.
The contest is a rematch of the 2004 race in which Davis held Reynolds to an unexpectedly close 56 percent to 44 percent edge. Now, three separate polls since late last week showed Reynolds trails Davis by significant margins.
. . .
Reynolds - who has defended himself by saying that the e-mails in question were not the sexually explicit ones to other young men that were later revealed - says he mentioned the matter to the office of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, a matter of serious dispute since the scandal broke.
This has led many critics to demand to know why Reynolds didn't think the matter required a more thorough investigation, and whether he would not have been much more aggressive if - in his role as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee - the lawmaker making inappropriate contacts with pages had been a Democrat rather than a Republican."
"I want to see working class minds in office making the decisions that need to made to straighten out what is supposed to be for the people!"Add your two cents and take the Count on Me pledge.
"Better jobs. Better health care."
"Bulk prescription drug buying"
"[S]tates leading in manufacturing exports - such as Washington - or foreign direct investment - California and New York - are the states that pay higher wages. But states such as Arkansas, Idaho and West Virginia - which have cut their labor costs most drastically since the 1970s - rank in the lowest quartiles in terms of exports. Higher state labor costs are also associated with faster growth in gross state product, education levels, productivity and personal income.Read this sentence again: "Higher state labor costs [read: a higher minimum wage and better benefits] are also associated with faster growth in gross state product, education levels, productivity and personal income."International data support these conclusions as well. According to the World Competitiveness Index, the most competitive country in the world is Finland, and the other Scandinavian "welfare states" with generous unemployment and health care policies also rank in the Top 10. Countries such as Estonia, Ireland, Singapore, and South Korea, which have invested heavily in education, have also attracted high levels of foreign investment.
What about jobs and employment? My research showed that trends in state labor costs have little impact on unemployment rates, which remain higher in central cities and in isolated rural areas. Despite its drastic cuts in state labor costs, West Virginia still has the nation's highest unemployment rates. Job growth is modestly greater in states with lower labor costs. But many of these jobs are part-time, low-paid and offer few, if any, benefits. Thus declines in state labor costs are associated with a number of negative social outcomes: higher rates of crime, poverty, suicide, divorce and births to single mothers. Creating a few more low-paid jobs does not counter these adverse trends.
Congress and the presidency, firmly under Republican control, may invoke international competition and "globalization" to justify their refusal to raise the minimum wage and for shifting the tax burden from wealth and capital to workers' wages. But in many states, political officials have made other choices: to increase the state minimum wage, to enact the Earned Income Tax Credit to benefit the working poor, to expand rather than restrict access to workers' compensation and unemployment benefits. The global economic system is not a static, immutable force over which we are powerless. Indeed, it is the officials we elect who can influence how the costs and benefits of globalization are distributed."
Working Americans Under AttackTechnorati tags: Working Families PartyWorkers' rights have been severely crippled. On Tuesday, President Bush's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) -- "easily the most anti-worker labor board in history" -- issued a decision that will deny the right to organize to as many as 8 million workers in 200 occupations. Under the Taft-Hartley Act, "supervisors" in an organization are prohibited from joining unions. In a party-line vote of the five-member NLRB, the three Bush appointees voted to broadly interpret who can be called a supervisor, extending to someone who "spends as little as 10 percent to 15 percent of his or her time overseeing the work of others." AFL-CIO President John Sweeney noted, "The rights of anyone who spends 7 hours and 10 minutes a day on routine duties and 50 minutes on 'supervisory functions' are at risk." Working Americans' right to organize has suffered under the Bush administration. Currently, 32 million workers -- 25 percent of the workforce -- have no right to form a union under federal, state, or local law. Even though productivity has steadily risen, the restriction on workers' rights has contributed to lower wages and a "middle class in turmoil." Tuesday's NLRB decision is a defeat for workers everywhere. In a blistering dissent, the two board members appointed by former President Clinton warned that the ruling "threatens to create a new class of workers under Federal labor law: workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees."
'FAR OUT OF STEP WITH WORKPLACE REALITY': The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act were never meant to exclude professional workers who have no power to hire, fire, or discipline employees. But that's exactly what the NLRB ruled on Tuesday. In 2001, the Supreme Court -- with Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the majority -- forced the board to reexamine the definition of "supervisor," ruling that the definition set by the then-Clinton appointee-dominated board was too strict. But as the AFL-CIO's Stewart Acuff points out, Tuesday's Oakwood Healthcare, Inc. ruling goes "far beyond the clear intent of Congress, far beyond NLRB precedent, far more than necessary to comply with the Supreme Court's 2001 Kentucky River decision that gave rise to the ruling, and far out of step with workplace reality." The majority wrote that a supervisor is now someone who can assign "an employee to a certain department (e.g., housewares) or to a certain shift (e.g., night) or to certain significant overall tasks (e.g., restocking shelves)" or someone who has "men under him" and can decide "what job shall be undertaken next or who shall do it."
EXACERBATING THE CARE CRISIS: The nation is undergoing a "care crisis." A recent study in the Health Affairs medical journal "found 6,700 patient deaths and 4 million days of hospital care could be avoided each year by increasing staff of registered nurses," which requires not only training additional nurses, but also recruiting and retaining them in hospital positions. The Oakwood ruling will directly affect nurses, classifying more as supervisors ineligible for union protection. Lower unionization levels definitely won't help recruit more nurses or improve healthcare. Acuff notes, "Nurse unions lead the way in advocating for lower patient-to-nurse ratios and limits on mandatory excessive overtime, both of which have major consequences for patient care. It is no accident -- and has been documented by solid scholarly research -- that heart attack survival rates are higher for patients in hospitals where nurses have a union than in hospitals where nurses do not have a union." Vanessa Quinn, an emergency room nurse in upstate New York, said that expanding the definition of who is a supervisor is disastrous: "If we can't get young people into nursing, we're in trouble. They need to know they can go into this profession and take care of a family. Without union protection, pay will not be competitive."
WIDE-REACHING RESTRICTIONS FOR MILLIONS OF WORKERS: The Oakwood decision will go far beyond nurses though. The conservative National Association of Manufacturers yesterday applauded the NLRB's Oakwood decision, stating that it "updated a few decades of old 'us vs. them' workplace notions and brought federal labor law closer to the realities of the 21st Century workplace." But the problem with the ruling is precisely that it ignores the realities of the 21st century workforce, which, as Sweeney notes, "is more skilled and educated than those of previous generations. Workplace hierarchies have flattened out. Few employees today are in jobs that don't require them to exercise some independent judgment, to show someone else how to perform a task, to pass assignments on to co-workers. This should not cost them their right to a union voice on the job." By spending as little as 10 percent of the day "supervising" others -- even "minor, incidental, or occasional supervisory duties" -- an employee will lose the right to union representation. As the New York Times noted, "most of the nation's more than 20 million professional workers could fall into that category because many professionals, like a doctor overseeing nurses or a lawyer overseeing a secretary, could be deemed supervisors under the board's new guidelines." By 2010, this number could jump to 34 million professional workers, accounting for over 23 percent of the workforce.
"The more the House Republican leaders try to defend themselves on the Congressional page scandal, the worse it looks. They still do not seem to appreciate how serious this is, especially for a party that poses as the arbiter of morality. And they appear to be trying harder to deflect blame from themselves than to get to the bottom of what actually happened. The F.B.I. has begun investigating, but that will be a prolonged process, and the voters have to render a verdict in five weeks. There is evidence emerging that they should consider.Read the whole thing. Is this who we want running Congress?
...
Mr. Reynolds, who was one of the few members of Congress to know about the Foley problem early on, insists he did all he had to when he "took it to my supervisor," Mr. Hastert. But Mr. Reynolds is a key member of the House leadership, and his constituents need to know whether he knew enough to have done more than he did. We'd also like to know why, in the months when Mr. Reynolds was one of the few people to know of Mr. Foley's misconduct, Mr. Foley contributed $100,000 to Mr. Reynolds's Congressional campaign committee."
A reader better informed than we are pointed out that both Anthropolgie and Urban Outfitters are owned by Richard Hayne.Good reason to think twice before patronizing one of those stores.
Jonathan Valania wrote an excellent piece on Hayne in the Philadelphia Weekly a few years ago in which he reported that Hayne had donated $13,150 to Rick Santorum and his PAC over the years. (Santorum, as you'll recall, is anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, and in favor of teaching intelligent design.)
Hayne claimed in that article that his stores had no political affiliations or agenda. But Valania points out that a list of Santorum campaign donors included Urban Outfitters.
And the t-shirts at Urban Outfitters certainly seem to be an expression of a political point of view. In 2004, the store carried a t-shirt that declared "voting is for old people." You might accept their explanation that the message was meant ironically, but there's this:
Last year, the store sold a t-shirt that read "New Mexico, Cleaner than Regular Mexico."
And Urban Outfitters had no problem carrying the game Ghettopoly until the heat was on them.
Richard Hayne has every right to sell whatever's legal in his stores. You have every right to know where your dollars are going. Your money, your choice.
Congressman Tom Reynolds' (R-NY) chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, tried to broker a secret deal last Friday to get ABC News to cover up the worst part of the Foley child predator scandal, the lurid five-plus-page instant message chat in which Foley asked a child to measure his penis and then led the child into a detailed discussion of masturbatory techniques. (AmericaBlog)On Sunday, the executive director of the Working Families Party (WFP), an independent political party in New York, wrote to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to determine whether House leaders Denny Hastert and Tom Reynolds violated criminal laws by covering up the Foley scandal.
"Given the potentially explosive nature of this case, along with the chances that other high-level lawmakers might be caught up in this scandal, an independent investigation seems to be warranted. By asking for a Justice Department investigation instead, Mr. Hastert has placed his trust in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has a reputation for accommodating Republican interests. The public deserves better. The pages deserve better."And an editorial in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle said,
"An independent investigation must be opened immediately. House Speaker Dennis Hastert wants the attorney general involved. The key is to get this investigation into the hands of someone with a reputation for impartiality and thoroughness."Dan Cantor, WFP executive director, reiterated his party's call for a special prosecutor:
"A growing chorus of respected voices are demanding that we get impartial answers to the key question: Why didn't the House leadership with knowledge of Foley's activity take action to stop sexual predator before the news media published the incriminating internet exchanges? Given the politicized context of the scandal, only a special counsel independent of the Bush Justice Department can be depended to find out, and hold the wrongdoers accountable."The text of the WFP's request for a special counsel follows below:
THE WORKING FAMILIES PARTYTell Attorney General Gonzales and your members of Congress to appoint a special counsel to investigate a possible Foley cover-up.
2-4 Nevins Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11217
October 1, 2006
The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
United States Department of Justice
Robert F. Kennedy Building
950 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Re: Request for the Appointment of Outside Special Counsel for the Investigation and Prosecution of Violations, or Conspiracy to Violate, Criminal Laws Relating to Mark Foley Affair
Dear Attorney General Gonzales:
The Working Families Party, an independent political party in New York State calls on the United States Department of Justice to appoint an outside special counsel with the independence to investigate and prosecute any and all criminal acts committed by any member of the U.S. House of Representatives relating to the apparent cover-up of the Mark Foley affair. Due to the severe threat to the integrity of the Congress, it is essential that such a counsel be appointed immediately. Such crimes are serious felonies and they need to be fully and independently investigated.
An independent investigation by a prosecutor, not subject to dismissal by any political appointee or elected official, is the only way to ensure that all those who participated in the cover-up of Foley's activities are held accountable for committing these serious crimes. No person is above the law, not even a member of Congress.
Republican members of Congress called yesterday for a criminal investigation of Foley's activities. That is a step in the right direction but does not go far enough. To borrow a phrase from Watergate, the cover-up is sometimes worse than the original crime. That deserves an independent investigation. According to a report by Ben Smith of the New York Daily News,"On July 27, 2006, the [National Republican Congressional Committee], which [Rep. Thomas] Reynolds chairs, accepted an unusually large contribution of $100,000 from Foley. Hard to imagine something of that size just slipping past the chairman."To be blunt, this has every appearance of "hush money" accepted by the political committee controlled by Representation Thomas Reynolds (R-NY). The actions or inactions of Reynolds and Speaker Hastert must be investigated immediately.
The Appointment of an Outside Special Counsel Is Plainly Warranted. As you know, the Justice Department's own regulations require the appointment of an outside special counsel when a three-prong test is met. 28 C.F.R. part 600.1. First, a "criminal investigation of a person or matter [must be] warranted." Second, the "investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department." And, third, "under the circumstances it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter." If this three-prong test is met, under the federal regulations that govern the Justice Department, a special counsel must be selected from outside the government who has the authority to secure necessary resources for investigation and prosecution and who would have full investigatory and prosecutorial powers. 28 C.F.R. parts 600.3-600.6.
In this case, the most senior members of Congress have acknowledged the need for a criminal investigation. Because the political nature of the affair has put control of the House of Representatives at risk, a Justice Department under the direction of President Bush faces a deep conflict. And the potential stain of these allegations on a branch of Congress elevates the public interest to a level mandating appointment of a Special Counsel.
We thank you for your attention to this critically important matter. We trust you will review the facts and allegations and take the only appropriate action: appointment of an outside special counsel to conduct a thorough and independent criminal investigation. We look forward to the Department’s response. Please contact us to arrange a meeting to discuss this request.
Very truly yours,
Dan Cantor
Executive Director
Working Families Party
"Why did you take $100,000 from Mark Foley after you knew he was engaging in questionable online activity?Technorati tags: Working Families Party | 2006 Election | Take Back the House | Vote Row E | NY26 | Foley | Reynolds | Davis
Why didn't you ask your chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, what Fordham's former boss Mark Foley was doing e-mailing 16 year old kids?"
"No issue is more important than the safety and security of our children. Like all of us, Tom Reynolds has a moral obligation to protect our children. Reynolds should have been demanding accountability from Mark Foley. Instead, he was demanding a $100,000 campaign contribution – and took it."Technorati tags: Working Families Party | 2006 Election | Take Back the House | Vote Row E | NY26 | Foley | Reynolds | Davis
"Right now it's a category 3 hurricane and it's picking up steam. Republicans all across the country are getting questions about it. But here's the key question: Did any Republican leaders know about those x-rated emails that ABC's Brian Ross is talking about? If they did, it's game over. The leadership will have to resign. It will cost Republicans control of Congress. As one top GOP aide told me this morning, 'the place will burn down.'"Tell Attorney General Gonzales and your members of Congress to appoint a special counsel to investigate a possible Foley cover-up.
"On July 27, 2006, the [National Republican Congressional Committee], which [Rep. Thomas] Reynolds chairs, accepted an unusually large contribution of $100,000 from Foley. Hard to imagine something of that size just slipping past the chairman."To be blunt, this has every appearance of “hush money” accepted by the political committee controlled by Representation Thomas Reynolds (R-NY). The actions or inactions of Reynolds and Speaker Hastert must be investigated immediately.
