Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

[Paddycakes]

The more deeper, philosophical question being missed in all of this is: Why would anyone want to have sex in an airport washroom?

Couldn't he get a hotel at least and hire a male prostitute? It's not like he couldn't afford it.

[Alyallen]

[bluzusi]

I have sympathy for Senator Craig's family. However, for him I feel nothing but disdain. He's always been a hypocritical, deceitful, egotist. He's already begun trying to spin things by claiming to be a victim of the press, gay groups, etc. This is sop for the Republican party in Idaho. Fortunately, however, some credible, responsible national Republican leaders called for his resignation today. Noone in politics could have imagined Idaho being anything but a "red" state. Larry Craig has been able to accomplish it though. The problem is that rather than changing from a "red" to a "blue" state he changed it to "pink".

[Alyallen]

Damn...the hits keep on coming...

Foot-tapping ritual common in sex sting
By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press Writer
MINNEAPOLIS - A foot-tapping ritual was a common thread in many of the 41 arrests reported during a four-month airport bathroom sting that snared Sen. Larry Craig.

An undercover officer would take a seat in a stall. Soon another man would sit in the stall next door and start tapping his foot, perhaps moving it closer to the officer's. The officer would move his foot up and down slowly. The suspect might then extend his hand under the divider between the stalls, sometimes repeatedly.

That would be enough to get the man busted.

Airport police reports obtained by The Associated Press gave strikingly similar accounts of the events that led to the 41 arrests officers made for alleged lewd conduct in public restrooms in the main terminal of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport during the May-August sting.

Craig insisted that his actions were misconstrued, according to the police report on his June 11 arrest. But the Idaho Republican quietly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct earlier this month. After word of his arrest finally surfaced this week, Craig insisted he had done nothing wrong, that he regretted pleading guilty and indicated he might try to withdraw his plea. He also insisted he is not gay.

In several of the police reports, officers wrote that they knew from their training and work experience that the foot-tapping was a signal used by people looking for sex. The reports said the department had received complaints from the public and made numerous arrests.

Craig's alleged conduct closely followed the pattern described in several of the arrests. In his report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia said he went into a stall shortly after noon on June 11 and closed the door. Minutes later, the officer said he saw Craig peering into his stall through the crack between the door and the frame.

After a man in the adjacent stall left, Craig entered it and put his luggage against the front of the stall door, "which Sgt. Karsnia's experience has indicated is used to attempt to conceal sexual conduct by blocking the view from the front of the stall," said the complaint.

The complaint said Craig then tapped his right foot several times and moved it closer to Karsnia's stall and then moved it to where it touched Karsnia's foot. Karsnia recognized that "as a signal often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct," the complaint said.

Craig then passed his left hand under the stall divider into Karsnia's stall with his palm up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times, the complaint said.

The 40 others caught up in the sting, according to the police reports, included airport and airline employees, an account executive with Revlon, an IT consultant for Ernst & Young, a 3M executive and a Lands End employee.

In an incident June 25, Karsnia arrested three men at once.

He wrote in his report that he was waiting for two suspects to come out of their stalls to be arrested. Then a third suspect near urinals exposed himself to the officer with a smile. One of the suspects, according to the report, was "known" around the airport for lewd acts in the restrooms.

Police nabbed a few of the suspects by other means, such as responding to posts on Internet sites by men looking to arrange a quick hookup as they passed through the airport.

Some of the suspects were area residents; others were from out of town. Addresses ranged from ordinary local neighborhoods to New York's Park Avenue. The airport is the headquarters hub for Northwest Airlines, and thousands of passengers connect through it every day.

The charges ranged from misdemeanors such as loitering, disorderly conduct and indecent exposure, to gross misdemeanors such as interference with privacy. Some of the suspects denied to police that they were after sex, others admitted it. Most were cooperative with police.

One even told the arresting officer � Karsnia, the same officer who arrested Craig � "Thank you for being respectful, sir."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/craig_other_arrests;_ylt=AqKMnpOjAeFVDLMuyfcfzWoDW7oF

[cbclark4]

Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place. {R.A.H.}

[endo]

I understand that homosexuality has been supressed for thousands of years and has thus created the more seedy side to it.


But I just don't get the rush on trolling for dudes in a washroom?


I mean that's really nasty.

[Dome Vans]

I love the fact that Sgt Karsnia is used as bait. What a great job, having to hang around the bogs waiting to get cracked on.

How would he have this phrased in his contract?

The employee shall act gay to snare anyone trying to actually be gay. Although and we make this clear the Officer will NOT enjoy this chase and will return home to his loving wife and family for a proper life, not the wrong gay life.

[On the other hand]

[twg]

The modern conservative dream: Blowing a teenage intern while a hooker slaps a diaper on you in the men's room.

[Alyallen]

Officer accused Craig of lying

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audiotape of the arrest.

On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police, the Idaho Republican in turn accuses the officer of soliciting him for sex.

"I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Sgt. Dave Karsnia minutes after the two men met in a men's room at the airport on June 11.

"You shouldn't be out to entrap people," Craig told the officer. "I don't want you to take me to jail."

Karsnia replied that Craig wouldn't be going to jail as long as he cooperated.

The two men disagreed about virtually everything that had occurred minutes earlier, including whether there was a piece of paper on the floor of the stall and the meaning of the senator's hand gestures. At no time did Craig admit doing anything wrong, although weeks later he pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.

"You're not being truthful with me," Karsnia told Craig during the interrogation. "I'm kind of disappointed in you, senator."

Meanwhile, more of Craig's Republican colleagues moved away from him Thursday in the wake of his guilty plea earlier this month to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct in the undercover police operation aimed at sex solicitors.

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who chairs the GOP's senatorial campaign committee, stopped short of calling on Craig to resign but suggested strongly that he should.

"I wouldn't put myself hopefully in that kind of position, but if I was in a position like that, that's what I would do," Ensign told The Associated Press in his home state. "He's going to have to answer that for himself."

Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, each turned over to charity $2,500 in campaign donations they had received from Craig's political action committee. Coleman and Collins both face potentially tough races for re-election next year.

Coleman and several other Republicans � including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. � have called for Craig to resign his seat in the Senate. Craig already has agreed to a request by Republican leaders to give up his ranking status on the Veterans Affairs Committee and Appropriations subcommittees.

Craig said Tuesday he had committed no wrongdoing and shouldn't have pleaded guilty. He said he had only recently retained a lawyer to advise him in the case, which threatens to write an ignominious end to a lifetime in public office.

GOP Senate leaders said they did not act lightly in asking Craig to give up his leadership posts temporarily. But they said their decision was "in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the ethics committee."

On the tape, Craig and the arresting officer can be heard arguing over what happened in the men's room minutes earlier. Craig acknowledges that the men's feet bumped but says nothing improper happened.

"Did we bump? Yes, I think we did. You said so. I don't disagree with that," Craig said.

But Craig disputes the officer's account that he swept his hand under the stall next to him in an apparent effort to advance the encounter. They even disagree whether Craig used his right hand or his left hand.

Craig said he was merely trying to pick up a piece of paper � an account the officer disputes.

"I'm telling you that I could see, so I know that's your left hand. Also I could see a gold ring on this finger, so that's obvious it was the left hand," Karsnia tells Craig.

"Well we can dispute that," Craig says. "I'm not going to fight you in court. I reached down with my right hand to pick up the paper."

Karsnia said in a police report that he recognized Craig's hand gesture as a signal aimed at initiating sex. "It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper," he said in the report.

Karsnia, 29, joined the airport police department just out of college in 2000 and was promoted to sergeant in 2005. Last year, he earned a master's degree in criminal justice, leadership and education.

He has arrested at least a dozen men in the airport's bathroom for sending signals he believed were aimed at initiating sex. Each time, Karsnia walked suspects to a spot where they could speak privately, without embarrassing them, according to the police reports he wrote. He didn't handcuff them.

Meanwhile, Idaho Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter told CNN that Craig's loss of his committee leadership posts was "problematic," adding: "I'm sure Larry and his family are going to take those things into consideration as they go forward with their decisions."

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said that "like most Idahoans, I was shocked by the allegations against Larry and by his guilty plea. However, I tend to judge people by the totality of their career and Senator Craig has been a dedicated public servant who has been an asset for Idaho for almost 30 years. At this time, I will not pass judgment on this matter."

___

Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nev., Joshua Freed in Minneapolis and Todd Dvorak in Idaho contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_go_co/craig_arrest

[Alyallen]

Another article that gives some insight into the rules of conduct....

Nothing in code matches Craig conduct By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 14 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - A guilty plea to a misdemeanor? The Senate's code of conduct is silent.

Handing an arresting officer your Senate business card? Nothing there.

Asked to investigate Sen. Larry Craig's conduct in an airport men's room and the aftermath, the Senate's ethics committee must judge him on an intentionally vague standard. Did he exhibit "improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate."

Craig was arrested June 11 in a Minneapolis airport bathroom after an undercover officer observed conduct that the officer said was "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct."

A police report said Craig, R-Idaho, gave the arresting officer his Senate business card and asked, "What do you think about that?"

After the story of the arrest broke this week, Craig said he "overreacted and made a poor decision" to plead guilty � without an attorney � in hopes of making the incident go away quickly. He said he was not involved in inappropriate conduct and is not gay.

Senate Republican leaders, wary of fending off corruption allegations for the second straight election, immediately asked the Senate ethics committee to investigate.

One senator, whose conduct in a U.S. attorney firing is under ethics committee scrutiny, warned against a "rush to judgment" but backed his leaders.

"The action being taken by the Senate Republican leadership is a good first step toward getting the facts," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, whose home was raided by the FBI in an ongoing probe, didn't want to touch the subject. "I spoke to my attorneys about it, and they advise I make no comments about any investigations right now."

A spokeswoman for one ethics committee member, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Roberts "believes this is a serious matter that certainly warrants further review by the committee."

In the mid-1960s, when the Senate approved the current language on improper conduct, the drafters "did not attempt to delineate all the types of conduct" that would be improper, the code explains. The three Democrats and three Republicans on the current ethics committee will have to figure that out.

Craig could face a censure resolution or even expulsion, a decision for the full Senate.

So what is bad conduct? It is behavior "so notorious or reprehensible that it could discredit the institution as a whole, not just the individual," the drafters explained.

To find the type of conduct that would qualify as "notorious or reprehensible," one can only look at past cases. It is unlikely that any would duplicate the sequence of events in Craig's case: his conduct in a bathroom stall; an arrest; a plea to disorderly conduct without hiring a lawyer and, now, saying the plea was a mistake.

Craig never informed Senate Republican leaders, nor did he tell his Idaho constituents.

And in an audiotape of the arrest, released Thursday, a police officer interrogating the senator told Craig: "You're not being truthful with me. I'm kind of disappointed in you, senator."

The catchall Senate standard of conduct "is important and it's real," said Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a group that tracks congressional conduct. "It has been used in a number of cases to find a member engaged in improper conduct."

From the Senate's early days, long before the current language existed, there were instances where the senators felt they knew improper conduct when they saw it. According to the Senate's ethics manual:

_In 1797, Sen. William Blount of Tennessee was expelled for inciting Creek and Cherokee Native Americans against the government. He was not charged with a crime.

_In 1811, the Senate censured Sen. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts for reading a confidential communication on the Senate floor, although there was no written rule prohibiting the conduct.

_In 1954, the Senate censured Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin for behavior "contrary to senatorial traditions," after he refused to cooperate with committees investigating his anti-communist witch hunts.

The first case involving a finding of improper conduct using the current language involved the investigation of Sen. Thomas Dodd, D-Conn.

He was censured in 1967 for financial misconduct. His actions did not violate any specific law or Senate rule then in force, but the conduct was found to be "contrary to accepted morals ... and tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

_In 1990, the Senate denounced Sen. David Durenberger of Minnesota, in part based on his financial arrangements for a condominium he owned. His conduct was deemed to have "brought discredit upon the United States Senate" by a "pattern of improper conduct."

There was no finding that any law or rule had been violated in the condominium arrangement. The ethics committee's chairman, however, said the conduct violated the spirit of federal law, which generally prohibits a lawmaker from benefiting from a contract with the U.S. government.

_In 1991, in the Keating Five case involving interference with financial regulators, the committee concluded that Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., engaged in improper conduct by linking fundraising and official activities.

_And in 1995, the committee found Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., brought discredit upon the Senate by repeatedly committing sexual misconduct through 18 unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances.

"The language is written in ways that cover both institutional misconduct and personal misconduct," said Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.

"For this particular case, it makes a lot of sense. Senators should have leeway on whether this rises to the level that someone should not be in the Senate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_go_co/craig_ethics

[Alias]

You can read the entire transcript here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/30/craig.transcript/index.html

[Alias]

[Fresh Prince]

Are people seriously buying that they guy accidentally touched feet and was picking up a piece of paper?