What does Barney Frank have to do with anything?

[babylonsister]

OK, so he's gay, big deal. The repugs keep bringing him up. I've heard his name combined with Gerry Studds, I've read he ran a prostitution ring, but have not read any confirmation of anything. Is this the repigs just grasping at straws?

[acmejack]

1. Must smear Democrats...

[RedStateShame]

2. Repubigot thinking: Pedophile = Homosexual

[peekaloo]

3. Democrats do it too! Democrats do it too!

so glad the adults are in charge.

[wakeme2008]

4. Gay Adult Male having sex with Gay ADULT MALE...

is NOT the same as a Gay Adult male trolling for Minor males. Sorry Rush etc....

[C_U_L8R]

5. Absolutely nothing

which goes to show how desperate the republicans are...
they got NOTHING except themselves to blame

[pnwmom]

6. He didn't run a prostitution ring, but unfortunately

he was connected with a guy -- who lived with him -- who was a working prostitute. And there was something about fixing traffic tickets as well. So it wasn't one of our greatest moments . . . .

On edit:

Found this in the Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/10/02/to_be_frank/?page=6

SNIP

Back in 1985, Frank had engaged the services of a male escort named Stephen Gobie, who had advertised his "hot bottom" in a personal ad. Over the next two years, while Frank was trying to decide whether to come out, he and Gobie carried on a clandestine affair, during which time Frank hired Gobie as a driver despite knowing Gobie was on probation for drug possession and for possession of child pornography. Frank used his House privileges to fix Gobie's parking tickets. He wrote a memo trying to clear Gobie from probation that was disingenuous at best and an outright deception at worst. Gobie repaid Frank by running a prostitution service out of Frank's Capitol Hill apartment. When Frank discovered this, he fired Gobie and ended their relationship. Then, in 1989, just two years after Frank's announcement that he was gay, Gobie told his story to the conservative Washington Times.

There was an immediate public outcry. Frank confirmed the basic details of his relationship with Gobie and the financial and other favors he'd done, but he angrily denied he'd been aware that Gobie had gone into business for himself in Frank's apartment. Even so, it was an astonishing act of indiscreet self-indulgence, especially for the stiff-necked ethics scold who'd shown no pity for the various Abscam defendants. Even Frank's closest Massachusetts friends were shaken. And The Boston Globe called for Frank to resign, so as to spare the voters the pain of having to confront his sex life in the voting booth.

Instead, Frank admitted what he'd done, denied what he hadn't, and took his case to the House ethics committee, which recommended a reprimand by the full House, a lesser penalty than the censure that had been requested in a motion by a notorious back-bench bomb thrower named Newt Gingrich. The punishment was handed down in 1990.

Frank set out to rehabilitate himself. He declined the Globe's invitation and ran ferociously for reelection in 1990, winning with 66 percent of the vote. He worked doggedly at legislation. Moreover, he found a kind of power in his unique position. When Republican aides began circulating rumors that then Speaker Thomas Foley was gay, Frank called in the press and said that, if the whispers didn't stop, he would publicly out any Republican member whom he knew to be gay. The whispers stopped.

SNIP

[trof]

21. I love that man.

Strictly platonically, ya understand.
;-)
Seriously, I have the highest respect for him.
I'd be proud to have him represent me in congress.
And what a rapier wit!

[mike_c]

7. iirc one of the pages has told reporters that they were regularly...

...hit upon by Franks, Kolbe, and Foley.

[pnwmom]

10. What I read was that they were aware of the orientation

of those 3, but in terms of harrassment, Foley was in a class by himself.

[mike_c]

17. you're probably right-- I don't recall the details...

...and that does make more sense.

[Botany]

8. It is called muddying the waters

When the charge can not be refuted give other examples so as make
people loose focus on what needs to be looked at.

i.e. ACVR American Center for Voting Rights
a repug front group put together after the dirty 04 election which
talked about all the dem election fraud .... both sides do it ......


Studds, Frank, and Clinton/Monica are being pushed to get the
topic off Foley and the GOP cover up of his sexual predation on
young boys.

[JohnnyLib2]

9. This kind of crap has worked for 8 years or so and they have fallen back t

I might call it a default position for the Repubs, but no pun is missed on DU!

[zanne]

11. I don't know about a prostitution thing.

Gerry Studds (D) represented the Tenth District of MA for many years. Ten years after he took office, the House voted to censure him for allegedly having sex with a male page (no age given) ten years before. That was in 1983. In 1984, he was re-elected.
I don't know if I've got some of this wrong. It's hard to get info on him that doesn't come from a right wing website.

[Mike Daniels]

23. Studds is really the only similar comparison to Foley

Given the underage male page connection. According to accounts I've read, the page was 17 which was just under the age of consent at that time in DC.

However, the FReep argument falls apart in that Congress did censure Studds. Whether Congress had any recourse once Studds arrogantly told them to "F off" and continued to get re-elected, I don't know.

[trof]

12. Well, he's a DEMOCRAT QUEER! And...um...

See? They have queers and preverts too!
Gerry Studds, Barney Frank, Wilbur Mills, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and...um...all those other guys.
IT'S NOT JUST US!
So everybody should just be quiet and not say anything because they're just as bad as we are.
Or just as bad as we might be, if we were bad.
Which we aren't.
So quit saying that.

:sarcasm: OFF

:banghead:

[graywarrior]

13. They'd better tread lightly with Frank.

He's not someone who you can mess with easily.

[LostinVA]

15. He could out lots and lots of GOPers in DC if he wanted to

He never has, but he has that Ace up his sleeve.

[graywarrior]

18. Not his style, but he has a way of laying out info that could

make republicans very uncomfortable. I would not mess with this guy.

[LostinVA]

19. Exactly, and it WILL be his style if they smear him too much

[Deep13]

14. No much. Long time ago. Best they can say now is...

..."They are as bad as us."

[wicket]

16. Wikipedia has some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank

In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that a male prostitute, Steve Gobie, that Rep. Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, had conducted a prostitution ring from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year after learning of Gobie's activities.

The Boston Globe, among others, called on Frank to resign, but he refused. The House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. This condemnation was not reflected in Frank's district, where he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.

[BlueManDude]

20. This is why those on DU who are all squeemish about using Foley

to score points are way off base.

Imagine what the GOPers would do if Foley were a Dem? Any chance of taking the House would be gone. Finito.

They will do anything to win and so must the Dems. Only then (when GOPers have felt the wrath of the same disgusting political tactics that they themselves use) will politics improve.

[beyurslf]

22. I'm sorry but we don't want Foley. At our national meeting last night. we

voted unanimously to reject his application into Homosexuality. You straights have had him for 52 years, you keep him.