RAHM EMANUEL SHOULD RESIGN FROM CONGRESS IMMEDIATELY AND GO BACK TO BEING A CROOKED STOCKBROKER OR BALLERINA

The "Garden of Eden" legend supposedly places that place in modern-day Iraq, pre-serpent/pre-Bush. But right now I feel like the place I'm in could have been the Garden of Eden. Regular DWT readers know I'm traveling around South America, recovering from entirely too much electoral blogging in the past 6 months. Notice how I've generally stayed away from the computer other than to write a short post every day or two at my travel blog? This morning I got some e-mails that just demand to be addressed. First I went with Maximllian out on the laguna here in Colonia Carlos Pelligrini in the heart of Esterios de Iberà in Corrientes Province. It's an incredibly beautiful and tranquil wetlands-- I was refering to it as "a swamp" before I got here. Anyway, for the last 3 hours I've been floating around and watching alligators and walking in the jungle looking at monkeys. And all the time Rahm Emanuel kept coming into my mind. Elsa, the proprietess of this incredible place I'm staying, Posada de Laguna, is letting me use her laptop. There's no TV here at the lodge but there is a satellite hookup for internet.

I can't paste and copy on this thing so I beg you to read this short CNN story on the Rahm Emanuel/Mark Foley connection.

[Here's the CNN report.--Ken]

Aide: Democrat leader heard of Foley e-mails in 2005

WASHINGTON (CNN)--The head of the House Democrats' campaign committee, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, had heard of former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a former male page a year before they became public, a campaign committee aide told CNN.

Foley, a Republican, resigned after the scandal broke. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans have suggested repeatedly that some Democrats knew about the e-mails earlier than they have acknowledged, but waited till midterm elections approached to bring up the issue.

Emanuel's campaign committee aide said Friday that the Illinois Democrat was informed in 2005, but never saw the correspondence and did not have enough information to raise concerns. The aide said Emanuel took "no action" because his knowledge was "cursory" and little more than "rumor."

The aide's acknowledgement differs from the flat "no" Emanuel gave in October when asked--during an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"--if he or anyone on his staff knew of the e-mails before the scandal broke.

The e-mails surfaced when House Democratic staffer Matt Miller sent a copy of them to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's communications director, Bill Burton, in fall 2005, according to an investigative report released Friday.

Burton told Emanuel about the e-mails but did not tell reporters, the aide said.

In his deposition to the ethics committee, Miller said he also sent Foley's e-mails to the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, the Miami Herald and Roll Call, according to the report.

Miller also sent the material to Harper's Magazine "and possibly others," the report said.

Miller told the ethics committee he had sent the e-mails to the media because he considered them inappropriate and predicted "nothing would come" from giving them to the ethics panel or the House Page Board, according to the report.

Miller had sent the e-mails to the Democratic campaign committee with the expectation they would be shared with the media, he testified.

It wouldn't be until late September--six weeks before midterm elections--that media reports on those e-mails led to Foley's resignation and a political firestorm that contributed to Republicans' loss of the majority.
How e-mails got to Miller

The report released on Friday outlined how Miller received the e-mails:

* The former page--who had been sponsored by Louisiana Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander--was troubled by the e-mails. He sent them, along with Foley's request for a picture, to an employee in Alexander's office.

* The employee, Daniel Savoy, forwarded them to a friend, Kelley Halliwell, a former House employee who was working for a lobbying firm.

* Halliwell sent the e-mails to her boyfriend, Justin Field, who worked at the House Democratic Caucus with Miller.

Both Field and Miller testified that no one in the caucus office--including then- Chairman Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey--received the e-mails or was "involved in the decision to provide them to the press," the report said.

Menendez told CNN last week in a statement that he was never told about the e-mails.

Because Halliwell no longer works for the House, the ethics committee "did not attempt to reach a conclusion regarding whether her conduct could provide a basis for disciplinary action."

The panel only has jurisdiction over current House members and employees.

On Friday, the committee said although GOP leaders were negligent by not protecting teenage pages from possible improper advances but had broken no rules, and no one will be reprimanded.

This is a story I have been looking at since Dave Lutrin started telling me how Emanuel and his bullyboys were trying to drive him out of the Democratic primary. At the time I was very aware that the entrenched incumbent in a very Republican south-central Florida district was gay. But it was no secret from anyone, except of course the suckers and rubes who vote in the district, that Foley was a flaming homosexual who was out of control and couldn't keep his hands off young men. It was over a year ago I started writing about Foley and young military boys. What I didn't know at the time-- but, we now find out (despite his earlier public denials on TV)-- is that DCCC head Rahm Emanuel was aware at least since 2005 that Foley was molesting young male pages. Emanuel, every bit as bad a scumbag as Foley and the GOP leadership who covered up for Foley, did nothing to protect the young pages from predators like Foley and Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe (who was also preying on them). Instead he decided to use the info as ammo in his partisan war to win a seat from the Republicans.

I was scatching my head at the vehemence Emanuel employed in the run up to the primary in trying to drive Dave Lutrin out of the race. Lutin is a school teacher and union member and a good family man. He's also an independent-minded progressive, passionate about Democratic ideals and values-- exactly the kind of Democrat Emanuel loathes. Lutrin opposes the systemic corruption that allows weasels like Emanuel to thrive in DC and he opposed the war in Iraq that Emanuel was warning Democratic challengers to be quiet about.

Last June the current Emanuel-backed congressman-elect, Tim Mahoney, was a rich countryclub Republican and a corrupt businessman, Emanuel's cup of tea. Emanuel, already aware that he could force Foley to resign, convinced Mahoney to switch party registration-- although not values and principles; I mean there is a difference between Democratic values and Republican values... right?-- and voila! all Emanuel and his stooges, like Steny Hoyer and Ellen Tauscher, had to do was drive the real Democrat out of the primary and clear the way for Mahoney. This he did, employing all the dirty tricks he used during the election cycle to attack the campaigns of true Democrats like Jerry McNerney, Christine Cegelis, Carol Shea-Porter, Larry Kissell, Paul Hackett, John Hall and dozens of others all over the country.

When I get back from Argentina in January I plan to invite Dave Lutrin over to Firedoglake to talk about what happened in the district and how progressives can move forward inside of a Democratic Party dominated by slime like Emanuel and his coterie.

Yesterday, there was a run-off in New Orleans. It isn't a district a Republican can win. So Republicans joined corporate-oriented Democrats (plus normal Democrats sickened by the incumbent William Jefferson's barefaced corruption) to back the DLC candidate. Jefferson was caught with $90,000 in cash up his ass or in his freezer or something-- far less cash than Joe Lieberman was passing around in his re-election bid in Connecticut. Jefferson represents a Cunningham-like lone-wolf sort of corruption. The kind of corruption that is the hallmark of the Republican Party and their Democratic counterparts like Emanuel and the DLC is a far worse, far more pervasive systemic corruption that makes good government all but impossible in Washington. Jefferson won re-election. The idea is revolting. Of course, the idea of another DLC shill in Congress is also revolting.

Nancy Pelosi, properly, moved against Jefferson as soon as the $90,000 was discovered. Let's see what she does against her boy Rahm now. He should, at the very minimum, be immediately removed from any kind of leadership position inside the Democratic caucus. He should also resign from Congress, but I don't expect to see that until he's eventually caught for many more crimes than those just involving the Foley scandal. Emanuel is worse for the Democratic Party than anything the Republicans can throw our way.