Six-term Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL 16th), 52, has resigned after the revelation that he exchanged inappropriate emails with a former 16 year-old congressional page. Pages are high school students who work as messengers and attend classes under congressional supervision.

Rep. Foley, who is single, apologized Friday for letting down his family and constituents. Once his resignation letter was read late Friday afternoon, House Republicans spent the night trying to come up with an explanation.

At around midnight, a vote was engineered to let the House ethics committee decide if an investigation is necessary.

The page’s congressional sponsor, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA 5th) said the youth’s parents asked him not to pursue the matter. Before deciding to end his involvement, Rep. Alexander passed on what he knew to Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY 26th), chairman of the House Republican campaign organization.

Carl Forti, Rep. Reynolds’ spokesman said “We are not characterizing conversations that Congressman Reynolds may have had or may not have had with other members of Congress on that subject.”

Page Board chairman, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL 19th), said that he investigated, but Rep. Foley falsely assured him he was only mentoring the boy.

Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert, said the top House Republican had not known about the allegations. Rep. Shimkus said he learned about them in late 2005.

Just 39 days before the November 7 election, CQPolitics.com has temporarily changed its rating of Rep. Foley’s seat from “Safe Republican” to “No Clear Favorite.” Florida Republicans plan to meet as soon as Monday to choose a new nominee as a substitute, but Rep. Foley’s name will still appear on the ballot.

The Democratic nominee in south-central Florida’s 16th Congressional District is businessman and rancher Tim Mahoney, co-founder and chairman of financial services company, vFinance; and founder and president of the Center for Innovative Entrepreneurship.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Florida State Rep. Joe Negron, (R-Stuart), has already tried to lay claim to the seat. “I’m in the race,” Rep. Negron said, adding that he had learned of Rep. Foley’s resignation only a little more than an hour before. “I think it’s important that District 16 stay in the Republican column.”

Also mentioned as possible candidates were Florida State Senators Jeff Atwater, Ken Pruitt, and Paula Dockery.

Irony, Hypocrisy, and Pedophilia

In July, Rep. Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, introduced legislation to protect children from exploitation on the Internet, which is actually a good idea if it can be done constitutionally, but perhaps our Congressional Representatives should introduce legislation to protect children from exploitation by our Congressional Representatives.

Rep. Foley said: “We track library books better than we do sexual predators.” (Well, being in his 50s, I guess he ought to know all about that.)

Pedophilia is incurable and pedophiles cannot help what they are — which is a good reason why they should, upon conviction via due process, be institutionalized for life, thereby negating the perceived need for those unconstitutional sex offender registries that have the potential to incite vigilantism because the general public is allowed the same access to them as law enforcement officials — but hypocrites have no excuse because hypocrisy, unlike mental illness, falls under the purview of free will.

Pedophiles free wills may not help them with their eternally repugnant concupiscence, but the choice to act upon such desires is a product of free will. And so is avoiding close contact with children and seeking therapy to deal with temptation.

In his crusades for tough laws against those who use the Internet to sexually exploit children, Rep. Foley said “They’re sick people; they need mental health counseling.”

Perhaps he should’ve taken his own advice.

ABC News, which obtained a series of emails from Rep. Foley to the former page, has all the lurid details, “Exclusive: The Sexually Explicit Internet Messages That Led to Fla. Rep. Foley’s Resignation.”

In the messages provided to ABC News, Rep. Foley used the screen name Maf54. The teenager’s name was excised.

A sampling:

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

The language gets even more graphic (and inane, too, considering that one of the participants is in his 50s). For those who might find it titillating or morbidly fascinating, ABC News has a PDF of the rest.

Federal authorities say that Rep. Foley could be prosecuted under some of the same laws he helped to enact.

Brad Garrett, an ABC News consultant who is a former FBI agent said “Adds up to soliciting underage children for sex. And what it amounts to is serious both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years.”

The U.S. State Department, in its annual International Religious Freedom Report released this month, charges that North Korea suppresses religion, and North Korea responded by telling Washington to stop acting as the world’s “religious judge.”

The report quoted defectors and others who said that North Korea imprisoned and executed people who tried to practice religion. Governments and human rights groups say North Korea has one of the worst rights records in the world.

An article on Wednesday in Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun daily said: “The U.S., after the September 11 incident, has murdered many Muslims in cold blood in its mainland, Afghanistan and Iraq and made no bones about insulting and overriding Islam and Islamic culture.

“The United States is not a ‘religious judge’ but a chief culprit in the repression and extermination of religion which should be put in the dock of a religious trial,” the Rodong Sinmun article said.

“They [U.S. leaders] hold heretical a religious view and religion which criticize or disapprove of the American way of life,” said the official KCNA news agency article, according to an authorized translation.

This was the latest in a over a half-century’s worth of animadversions between the U.S. and North Korea, which have technically been at war since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an inconclusive truce.

Judgmental America

The U.S. has long had a proud tradition as a Christian nation that recognizes religious freedom. Our bias towards Christianity may sometimes cause us to fall short of manifesting true, religious tolerance, but we don’t imprison or execute people for their religious beliefs, no matter what some of our more zealous citizens might say when they exercise the free speech portion of our cherished First Amendment.

I will not defend tyranny and oppression, but as a Christian nation, we ought to watch out about that whole judging business as the Bible is quite clear:

“1. Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” — Matthew 7:1-2, King James Version

As Americans, we have a duty to call attention to injustices both here and elsewhere in the world. However, perception being reality, we also need to set a good example that demonstrates how we know and understand the vast difference between a secular government that protects and defends religious freedom and a secular government that forbids and punishes the practice of religion.

Unfortunately, we are currently not be able to do that as effectively as we could due to the spurious charges of tyranny and oppression that some Christians make after they’ve lost certain privileges that, in principle, they never should have rightfully enjoyed in the first place.

America’s long journey toward completely fulfilling its obligation to religious and other freedoms is nowhere near complete. Sure, we have a far better track record that North Korea (and some other nations), and we’ve even earned the privilege of calling attention to religious suppression in the world, but we still ought to tread lightly while doing so, lest we could allow our greatest virtue, justice, to transmogrify into our most deadly vice: pride.

And while we’re on the subject of pride, I’ll close with another of my favorite Scriptures:

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” — Proverbs 16:18, King James Version

God Bless America.

U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, on Monday, gave class action status to tens of millions of “light” cigarette smokers who are seeking a potential $200 billion lawsuit against “Big Tobacco.”

The lawsuit alleges that Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco Company, and other defendants deceived smokers with marketing strategies that were meant to get customers who were concerned about the health hazards of smoking to switch to “light” cigarettes, which were promoted as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes despite research showing that the actual dangers are about the same.

Included in the class are those who purchased cigarettes labeled “light” or “lights” after they were put on the market in the early 1970s.

Philip Morris USA and Reynolds American Inc.’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. unit, the nation’s two biggest cigarette makers, said they plan top appeal.

Judge Weinstein set the trial date for Jan. 22, 2007.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the tobacco companies, through their use of deceptive marketing of “light” cigarettes, made $120 billion to $200 billion in extra sales. The case was filed under federal racketeering law, which means that damages would be tripled if the companies are found in violation of that law.

The tobacco companies’ lawyers argued that, in order to be awarded damages, the plaintiffs would have to prove how many smokers relied upon the word “light” in deciding which brand of cigarettes to buy. They also said there are 65 cigarette brands represented in the case whose advertising approached consumers in different ways.

In his opinion, Judge Weinstein conceded that appellate courts have not ruled favorably for plaintiffs on large class action cases against the cigarette industry.

The Eternal Questions of Tobacco Ethics

While there may be something to the charges of deceptive advertising, warning labels about the hazards of smoking have been required on all cigarette packaging since 1965.

When “light” cigarettes were put on the market, they carried the same warning labels as regular cigarettes, but some of their marketing did seem to suggest that “light” cigarettes were safer.

It’s a tough call. On the one hand is the issue of personal responsibility and the question of when the day will come when smokers can no longer credibly blame the tobacco companies for the consequences of their own weakness, and, on the other is how specious marketing may or may not have convinced some smokers to switch to “light” cigarettes in the belief that they were taking a measure of responsibility to reduce the potential health risks of their habits.

A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows President Bush’s approval rating at 44%, the highest it has been in a year.

Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, called the GOP’s apparent reversal of fortune, “the best two weeks Republicans have had since Bush was re-elected.”

Political scientist Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University said these new findings reflect, “a consistent, persistent, tenacious effort to make … the Republican Party’s ability to deal with terrorism the No. 1 issue in the campaign.” Dr. Eichenberg, who has studied presidential job ratings during wartime called it “a carbon copy” of the successful 2004 playbook.

Falling gas prices and Mr. Bush’s recent drive to highlight his administration’s efforts to fight terrorism are apparently beginning to pay off just seven weeks before this November’s contest for control of the Congress.

The poll showed that likely voters are evenly divided, 48%-48%, between Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress, but Democrats have a 51%-42% advantage among registered voters.

More than a quarter of likely voters said that Iraq is their top concern and they are evenly divided with regard to candidates who support and oppose Mr. Bush on Iraq. The question of whether the war there was a mistake was a 49%-49% draw, marking the first time, since December 2005, that a majority did not say that it was.

Six in 10 people said Mr. Bush does not have a clear plan for handling Iraq and two-thirds said the same thing about the Democrats.

Fifty-six percent said Congress is not doing enough to oversee U.S. policy there and three-quarters say that Iraq is in a civil war, despite the Bush Administration’s denial.

A lot can happen in a mere seven weeks. The Democrats still have an abundance of opportunity among these poll numbers, but whether or not they’ll be able to turn them into actual votes remains to be seen.

Because prohibitionists are usually rather averse to participating in any sort of debate in which the untenability of the drug war — a.k.a. Prohibition II, the sequel with a much bigger budget, a lot more hype, and a far higher body count — might be exposed, I thought I was onto something interesting when I ran across an Orlando Sentinel article entitled, “Should Marijuana be Legalized?” The September 8, 2006 report heralded the news of “The Great Debate: Heads vs. Feds,” in which Steven Hager, editor-in-chief of High Times magazine, and Bob Stutman, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent, discuss both sides of the issue of whether marijuana should be “legalized.”

I was soon disappointed, however, when I learned that this “Great Debate” is not really a debate at all. High Times has some exclusive video highlights of “Heads vs. Feds” and, if they are an example of what transpires at these events, then they are not truly debates, but rather exhibition matches between two gentlemen who have been, for a number of years, performing a very popular routine before standing-room-only crowds.

It’s a road show, an intellectual “concert” tour that can be booked through a company called Wolfman Productions, which has in its roster a wide variety of speakers and debaters who are available to perform discussions of numerous topics.

Now, entertainment is all well and fine, and fun is a Good Thing, but it does not truly raise awareness about just how deadly and destructive our prohibitionist drug policy really is, no matter how many thoughts this “Heads vs. Feds” production might promote in the minds of its audiences.

Of course, the “Heads vs. Feds” show would likely not be nearly as entertaining if it was presented as an honest debate about the principles of prohibition, instead of as a tiresome litany of the same questionable science and skewed statistics of which drug war propaganda has consisted for decades being “refuted” with anachronistic “hippie” rhetoric and an impassioned defense of the “counterculture.”

Clearly, this “Great Debate” is not intended to produce a “winner” as that would likely diminish its amusement value as a thought-provoking spectacle for its largely “pro-legalization” audiences – not to mention that Mr. Stutman might not care to play his “Fed” role opposite a “Head” who exposes the preposterousness of the boondoggle known as the “war on drugs,” instead of pulling punches and leveling the playing field with weak and uninspired arguments that are even more feckless today than they were back in the 1970s.

Mr. Hager’s best one-sentence arguments for “legalizing” marijuana are:

• “It’s good medicine”
• “Hemp is good for the environment”
• “We need to stop expanding and privatizing prisons”
• “We need to stop funding corruption with prohibition prices”
• “It’s the sacrament of my culture”

The medical marijuana and industrial hemp issues are important and they are related to the larger goals of drug policy reform, but they should be left out of a debate about the merits of interdicting certain human behaviors and habits as they cloud the issue with facts and ideas that distract listeners from the core argument against drug prohibition, which is that it is, in fact, the “drug problem,” and it has been masquerading as a solution to itself for almost a century.

I believe it is a given that adults have the right to ingest whatever substances they may find relaxing and/or enjoyable, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. But this assertion does not win friends or influence people, it is proselytization that is usually aimed, as a rallying cry, toward the already converted.

Nobody who has been taught by decades of drug war propaganda to fear the potential consequences of drug policy reform really cares that potheads feel oppressed because they might go to jail for breaking laws that are currently on the books in all 50 states.

Marijuana laws might not pass the old “laugh test” for those of us who know better, but most people don’t know better and their attitudes toward those dark and frightening things of which they wish to remain ignorant are deeply ingrained. Plus, they don’t want to touch anything called “counterculture” with one of those proverbial ten-foot poles, let alone make an effort to understand it, or to attempt to cultivate some sort of grudging respect for it.

Indeed, we should stop expanding and privatizing prisons. We should also stop funding corruption with the artificial inflation and price supports that prohibitionist policies unintentionally provide to the criminal element.

These are the issues with which reformers should go on the offensive because the only way to be perceived as winning a debate is to put your opponents on the defensive and keep them there for the duration.

Harsh on the drug warriors! Don’t let them back you into a corner, in which you become obliged to defend recreational drug use, the counterculture, and all manner of scary crime and overdose statistics that are laid squarely at the feet of your opposing viewpoint as the consequence of your failure to conform to the fears, uncertainties, and doubts of teeming masses of brainwashed asses!

Make the drug prohibitionists defend drug prohibition!

A few choice harshing points for the thoughtful reformer’s arsenal:

• If you support the war on drugs, you are in favor of our children having easy access (black market dealers do not ask for I.D.) to drugs that have gotten steadily purer, cheaper and more plentiful since the 1970s.
• If you support the war on drugs, you also support the cartels, kingpins, mobsters and gangs. Politics making for strange bedfellows, those whose livelihoods depend upon the protections and benefits of prohibitionist policies, are among the staunchest prohibitionists.
• If you support the war on drugs, you must want yet another generation of our inner city youth to grow up fast and die young in an atmosphere of crime, degradation and fear, for the benefits of the long-established retail drug trade far outweigh any possible risks to those who are born into circumstances of limited opportunity.
• If you support the war on drugs, you also support organized crime and all the violence of gangsterism, which prohibition has enabled to become a highly diversified, multicultural enterprise.

Don’t let drug warriors get away with that “soft on crime” routine that frightens so many of our politicians. Prohibition is not just soft on crime, it creates it and it’s helpful to it because the “war on drugs” is the ultimate de-regulation policy.

To the proprietors of an underground economy that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, interdiction is nothing but a small line item in their loss columns, part of the cost of doing business, which barely affects their huge, tax-free, bottom lines.

Don’t fall into the “alcohol trap” in which the prohibitionist agrees that perfectly legal alcohol is, by far, the most widely abused drug whose irresponsible use causes much death and destruction, but then follows up with rhetoric about how this is the best example of “why we don’t need another legal drug,” as if millions of people are not already using the illegal drug, and as if the drug laws are all that stand between a sober, productive society and a nation of “stoned-out zombies.”

Don’t be intimidated by the alcohol death statistics, for not only do they include a wide array of alcohol-related illnesses, accidents, and crimes, they are not representative of the vast majority of alcohol users who enjoy alcohol responsibly and moderately, and without incident. It’s the two-percenters who get all the attention, especially when they die of alcohol poisoning, which is a euphemism for an overdose.

(While we’re on the subject of overdoses, this seems a fit place to mention that, during the course of over 5000 years of recorded history, there has never been a single overdose death attributed to marijuana alone – and that is most decidedly not due to the lack of an honest effort.)

Comparisons of the modern drug war with Prohibition (1920-1933) can be a drug warrior’s worst nightmare because, when they are effectively and accurately applied, they become very convincing arguments that render any and all possible defenses of modern drug prohibition baseless and vulnerable.

Nevermind whether or not Prohibition reduced alcohol use, there is no way to tell anyway because, just like it is with the modern “drug war,” nobody knew who was selling what to whom, or for how much. The Prohibition era statistic that matters most is the murder rate, which began to climb steadily with the ratification of the 18^th Amendment in 1920, and did not begin to fall again until several years after the ratification of the 21^st Amendment in 1933.

Ask a drug warrior to describe the difference between Al Capone and Pablo Escobar and see how he or she changes the subject, dismisses the question as irrelevant, or tries to dance around the obvious similarities with arbitrary rhetoric about “nowadays.”

Try to avoid using the words “legalize” and “decriminalize” as not only have these terms become propagandized, they never really made any logical sense at all because the solution is not to “legalize” illegal drugs, but rather to regulate unregulated drugs.

Advocates of drug policy reform — whom prohibitionists sometimes refer to as “drug legalizers” — understand the true intent behind those words, but the larger society has been well-trained to equate them with chaos and anarchy.

A large, but shrinking, majority still believes that drug prohibition acts as a deterrent to the black market. In order to dispel this drug war myth that is so deeply ingrained into the public sentiment, reformers will need to clearly demonstrate how drug prohibition created and continues to enable the black market.

Simply demonizing the black market is not enough; prohibitionists already do that when they defend the drug war as “the solution” to it when the fact of the matter is that the black market in unregulated drugs became a low-risk, high profit business because of — not in spite of — the “war on drugs.”

Drug prohibition prevents the regulation of the drug business, but not the manufacture, sale and use of drugs. No authority or agency really knows who is selling what to whom, where they are selling it, or for how much.

Prohibitionist policies have never produced results that justify their cost to taxpayers, but they did create and continue to support a wealthy class of tax-exempt black market profiteers.

• The black market drug business thrives without taxes, regulations or restrictions.
• The black market considers interdiction mere “spillage,” which can be easily minimized by producing and moving more product. (And so what if quality and purity might suffer in the process? It is not as if any recalls would be imposed.)
• The black market does not have to comply with any labeling or packaging requirements. Unregulated drugs usually come packaged in plain plastic bags, but millions of people buy them anyway.
• The black market is not subject to zoning restrictions or licensing or regulatory inspections.
• Black market businesses do not collect sales taxes or pay income or property taxes.
• Black market drug dealers sell drugs to anyone, regardless of age, making it easier for kids to buy drugs.

The black market drug business has no consumer advocacy agencies or fair business practice and pricing associations. Black market drug dealers, growers, manufacturers, and consumers who have grievances cannot go to a court of law to settle their differences or turn to law enforcement in the event of theft or fraud, so they settle their disputes with violence, which is the primary reason why we must regulate these currently unregulated drugs.

In a contest of “Heads vs. Feds,” the “Heads” should always win, not so much because we are entitled as citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave, but because history and pragmatism are on our side.