Dennis Hastert Resigning

[NewHampster]

Source: Roll Call

http://rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/20539-1.html
Hastert Likely to Announce Resignation
By Lauren W. Whittington and Matthew Murray
Roll Call Staff
Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007; 7:57 pm

Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is expected to announce Thursday that he is resigning his seat in Congress effective later this year, eventually setting up a special election to succeed him, knowledgeable GOP sources said late Wednesday.

Read more: http://rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/20539-1.html

[graywarrior]

1. Rat...sinking ship.

[barb162]

20. Nah, he's got his millions , huge pension, great medical care.

He has nothing to worry about. He wants to spend more time enjoying/burning his money now.

[graywarrior]

22. What does a miserable man like him enjoy spending money on?

[barb162]

23. Golf, watching young women in teeny bikinis on the beach in the Caribbean, etc.

Oh and counting his millions.

[graywarrior]

25. Knowing people like him exist makes me afraid.

[barb162]

28. It doesn't bother me. I can't do much about it.

Once I got out of shock after Bush won a second term, I said if I got through the last four years, I can get through a second four. Somehow after 7 years of Bush, the country is still existing. Much weaker but still existing. In a little over a year he will be gone. I look forward to that. The Grand Canyon is still there and so are the Rocky Mountains. He and the gang were unable to completely destroy this country. Still his buddies in the corporations will keep on trying; they scare me more than Bush.

[saigon68]

61. Maybe he and Larry Craig can cruise airport mens rooms?

And do their "Toe Tapping" routine

[sofa king]

45. Or watching young boys

As the case may be.

[MADem]

46. Women? That's not what the rumor mill says.

I wonder if his wife, who stays home like Mrs. Craig, will even recognize old blubberbutt. When she visits DC (rarely) she doesn't stay in the townhouse, but in a hotel.

And I wonder what his young staffer-roommates will do....will they have to vacate their lovely townhome that they share with old Denny now?

Details and suppositions:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2006/10/how_to_out_without_really_tryi.php

Remember that Foley scandal? Palmer is one of Denny's roommates:=-:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/washington/09foley.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/B/Boehner,%20John%20A.&pagewanted=all

[Ecumenist]

47. Actually, from what I've heard and many other DU'ers have heard...

more than likely, he'll be spending those greenbacks watching young men in tight speedos...

[Toots]

56. I thought he was into young boy wrestlers

:shrug:

[krkaufman]

48. Land outside of Chicago...

... which zooms in value when he supports legislation to put in a new airport.

[rocktivity]

26. If Hastert deserted a ship, the LAST thing it would do is sink!

rocknation

[SpiralHawk]

57. rat off sinking HOMELAND

Republicon cronies - sheesh -- what a cabal of corrupt creeps

[Doctor Cynic]

2. Methinks he's twelve months too late. :P

[Melynn]

3. Seems kind of sudden

Wonder why? Health issues? Scandal? Caught top-tappin' in the bathroom?

[eyesroll]

8. So there will be an incumbent to run in 2008?

It's an easier pickup if it's an open seat.

[dysfunctional press]

14. trust me, that seat WILL remain repuke.

there's virtually NO CHANCE that a Dem could win that seat- just ain't gonna happen- it might as well be in utah or idaho.

[barb162]

21. You're right. That's also one of the strangest shaped districts I have

ever seen.

[kysrsoze]

62. Not to mention Central Illinois may as well be in Alabama

When I was at Illinois State (way back in '93), I used to work with this 19-y/o townie f*ck who thought he had it all figured out b/c he listened to Rush Limbaugh every day. OMG! The whole area is like that - completely backward, but obviously filled will lots of perverts and closeted homosexuals due to the number of strip clubs and gay bookstores. Lots of new money too, due to insurance employees. Republican Central. It was pretty hilarious, but simultaneously disturbing.

[merh]

10. Abramoff!

n/t

[Melynn]

24. Didn't think about that

I think you might be right.

[NewHampster]

31. I bet you're right

[sasquatch]

4. Did he get busted with a small boy or something?

Or perhaps his type 2 diabetes has reached a pointy where he's a Snicker pie away from losing a foot?

[Bitwit1234]

5. Remember that briefcase full of money

wonder if they found were it came from.

[rosesaylavee]

6. The Turks? n/t

[unkachuck]

7. I'm going to miss....

....that fat beady-eyed bastard....but I don't know why....

[HowHasItComeToThis]

9. HOPE THE REPUBS GO TO THE SAME PRISON

CAN YOU IMAGINE DOING TIME WITH A GANG OF INSANE REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TALK ABOUT DOING HARD TIME.

[Olney Blue]

11. Maybe he and the chimp can become climate scientists.

[lonestarnot]

12. Nope Denny ate the climate.

[sleepyhead]

52. Thanks for posting that picture.

Cracks me up every time I see it.

[dysfunctional press]

13. he's my current congressman, after we moved from rahm emmanuel's district...

one of these days, maybe i'll get a rep who's NOT a corporatist.

btw- there's pretty much NO WAY IN HELL that a Dem could ever win that seat, anyway.

[EST]

29. That's the way I understood it.

Even in a special election, the seat was likely to remain puke, no matter that republicans are crooks and gangsters, shamless in the extreme.

[RaRa]

53. Never say never

Things are definitely red here, but blue is creeping in. Give it time....

[sonias]

15. Woo hoo

And another one down.

Sonia

[reinhardt]

16. He was connected to HealthSouth..

..and siegelman and hatch and gingrich and scully and scrushy and harkin and the rest of the white-collar medicare criminals

[sonias]

19. And Brent Wilkes

Daily Kos thread today
Wilkes also paid to fly Cunningham and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert from a golf outing in Palm Springs to San Diego for a reception and then back to Washington on private jets, Combs testified.

Full NY Times article here:
Prostitutes Testify in Ca. Bribery Trial

:rofl:

Sonia

[reinhardt]

30. and.. Eric Hanson from U.S. Strategies

2000 "Mr Hanson took lawmakers including Dennis Hastert
out fishing on his boat and hosted a dinner at his Palm Beach
Fla. home that President Clinton attended."

The HealthSouth story is full of fish and bottom-feeders
starting with Gingrich

[reinhardt]

32. The attorney thingy is all about white-collar crime

http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/?page_id=14

http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/?page_id=24

[merh]

37. Abramoff

Go look see who was the largest recipients of Abramoff's money

[reinhardt]

41. Democracy is two parties that pretend to be against each other

For nearly all of Scrushy's tenure, press reports about the company were almost universally positive. In 1995, for instance, in the wake of one in a series of HealthSouth merger offers, Bloomberg News reported that then-U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) wanted Scrushy in Congress, and Alabama businessmen wanted him to run for governor. It quoted William Harnish, president of Forstmann Leff Associates, a money management firm with a large holding in Healthsouth, who said, "There may not be another person who has come so far and accomplished so much in corporate America."

Is it possible Gingrich didn't know about Ernst & Young's "pristine audits"?

http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/31/cx_da_0331topnews.html

[merh]

43. Hastert was up to his ass in Abramoff money and bought influences

just as is RNC Gov. Riley.

Corporations have to much power and control in this nation. But the siegelman prosecution was a political hatchet job. The RNC has used such prosecutions throughout the nation to weaken the dem influence and to try to cut off the money to the party.

[reinhardt]

44. You cannot name one Democrat that has brought up Gingrich's connections to Scrushy and HealthSouth

Why do you think that is?

[merh]

35. siegelman and scrushy were politcally targeted by the RNC controlled DOJ

they were removed from power and influence because of Rove's desire to put repubs in power in Alabama and to destroy the dem political base.

[reinhardt]

36. Follow the money - not the political production

http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/?page_id=14

http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/?page_id=24

[merh]

38. Then follow the Abramoff money

and follow the selective prosecution that was the Siegelman trial.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001266

[reinhardt]

39. Agreed n/t

[merh]

40. You really do need to appreciate that DUers are better informed

than most.

[reinhardt]

42. probably n/t

[Roland99]

17. No more Fat Bastert?

[onehandle]

18. Why not? He's pretty impotent at this point.

Trent Lott should have done the same thing. He's also a joke.

Newt did the right thing and quit.

[EST]

27. There are two big reasons for him to resign before the end of his term.

Both are mentioned upthread, but not together.
One is that resigning early puts him out of the limelight as bigger and more comprehensive investigations continue to snowball. He knows he's in it up to his eyeballs and also knows that jellyfish democrats will not push hard to indict him if he's not in the way. Politics, after all, rules everything.

The second, of course, is that it allows governor Blago to set a special election, to be held within 115 days, suspiciously near the primaries. If the pukes can field a successful candidate, the additional time in office is worth several points in next fall's election as well as fund raising, both local and gop-wide.

Hastert doesn't like being in the minority any better than his self engrossed, selfish cohorts.

[Teaser]

33. good riddance, fuckstick.

door...ass..hit ya...way out.

[lumberjack_jeff]

34. He's still there? n/t

[DemoTex]

49. DC Madam's list or Jeff Gannon's list?

Or both?

[NewHampster]

50. I tend to think the Abramof connection makes more sense n/t

[Ian David]

51. Dennis Hastert is resigning to spend more time molesting his own children. Some people say. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

59. Ewwwwwww - I really did not need that image!

[Odin2005]

54. Let me guess, got caught tapping his feet in a bathroom stall? n/t

[bdamomma]

55. another rat fleeing ship.

Hey Denny take Sensenbrenner with you.

[Nimrod2005]

58. He is resigning to spend more time at the Buffet!!!

[eggplant]

60. Congressional sources: Hastert won't serve out his term

Source: CNN

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert will resign his congressional seat rather than serve out the rest of his term, two GOP congressional sources told CNN.


Rep. Dennis Hastert, shown in June, was House speaker from January 1999 to November 2006.

The Illinois Republican said in August he would not seek re-election in the state's 14th District.

Both sources said Wednesday evening that Hastert would make an announcement "soon" but probably not on Thursday.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/18/hastert/index.html

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I think he wants to spend more time with his legal counsel.

[NewHampster]

63. Thanks for the eggplant