The nameplate is already gone from the office door of Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., and his Web site has gone dark. But the fallout from his apparently predatory behavior toward underage House pages has only just begun.
Now the FBI is checking to see whether Foley violated federal laws with his sexually suggestive e-mails. Also, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., wants the Justice Department to investigate Congress’ response once it learned one its members — a co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus — seemed to be soliciting minors for sex.
Hastert’s request for a probe rings a bit hollow, given the timing. It appears that Foley has been doing this sort of thing for at least three years, and House members had seen some of the sexually charged messages a year ago. Not surprisingly, Democrats say the GOP was trying to protect a House seat in an election year.
You think?
As for Foley, he’s done what a lot of public figures do when their careers implode: checked into an alcohol treatment facility. Can a book be far behind?
Posted by Dave Knadler
As a recent Eagle article reported, the city’s homeless can often be found at the Central Library, where they tend to gather during the day because of the lack of a daytime shelter.
The library staff has done an excellent job of trying to accommodate these citizens, who have a right to use the library’s resources.
That said, the library can’t serve as a homeless shelter. That’s not its mission. Many homeless people suffer from mental illness and drug addiction, and need help and counseling. Allowing them to sleep and hang out in the library on a daily basis can invite problems and discourage other patrons from visiting the facility.
As our editorial today argues, the situation is further evidence of the need for a new 24/7 homeless shelter.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Brent Castillo (aka “Values Boy”) wrote a column in The Eagle last month about the fertility gap between liberals and conservatives. A USA Today news article last week reported on both that and the marriage gap. It noted that Republican House members overwhelmingly come from districts that have high percentages of married people and lots of children. Meanwhile, it reported, not only do Democratic districts tend to have fewer children, those children are far more likely to live in poverty and with single parents than kids in GOP districts.
A couple of interesting stats from the article:
Democrats represent 59 districts in which less than half of adults are married. Republicans represent only two.
Democrats represent 30 districts in which less than half of children live with married parents. Republicans represent none.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The topic of shoring up the Mexican border with a $7 billion fence has gotten a lot of political mileage this election season. But the reality few want to talk about is the dollar value we save from this labor force.
Ask the orchard owners in Northern California who saw millions of pounds of fruit go to waste because they couldn’t get enough workers to pick it on time. The understatement of the election year comes from a manager of a large California tomato grower: “Americans don’t raise their children to be farm workers.”
The growers’ work force historically has been made up of seasonal migrant workers who cross over the border during harvest, and then return to Mexico. Since Sept. 11, the migrant workers have had problems getting back in the United States, or they stayed here but moved on to find year-round work to pay for permanent housing.
Any idea where the roofers replacing your hail-damaged roof were working last year?
The next time you go to the store and flinch at paying $1.59 for a pound of apples, you need to think: How much more are you willing to pay for those apples when you have to pay the equivalent of your own wages and benefits for someone to pick them?
Posted by Angie Holladay
State legislators complain about how public school districts have too many administrators. But the number of administrators is shrinking in the state. As total districts shrank from 304 in 2001 to 296 last year, because of voluntary mergers and closures, the number of superintendents dropped from 278.5 to 269.7, at least 55 of whom double as principals. And the principal total is down 2.8 percent since 2000, such that the state had nearly 157 more school buildings than principals last year. When does too many become too few?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Wichita attorney Alan Rupe (in photo) billed his clients — the school districts that sued the state over school funding — for at least four private conversations he had with members of the Kansas State Board of Education, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. That raised objections from Dan Biles, the state board’s attorney, because conversations with opponents in a lawsuit are ordinarily handled through their attorney.
What made the conversations even more unusual is that one of the board members apparently was Carol Rupe of Wichita, Alan Rupe’s ex-wife. She acknowledged passing along information — though she said it was never from the board’s executive sessions, and she said she told Biles that she talked to her ex-husband about school finance. “It’s no secret I thought the state board was on the wrong side of this lawsuit,” she said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
