Despite calls from his own party to step down, Dennis Hastert is apparently determined to stay on as Speaker of the House. :mad:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/05/has...oley/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert will ask former FBI director Louis Freeh to examine the congressional page system and make recommendations on how to improve the program, CNN has learned.

That word came as Hastert prepared to hold a news conference Thursday in his home district near Chicago to detail what actions he will take to deal with the spreading scandal over former Rep. Mark Foley and his contacts with teenage pages.

Hastert won't step down as speaker now or after the election, a senior GOP leadership aide told CNN Thursday.

"As the speaker I take responsibility for everything in the building," Hastert said in a statement earlier Thursday announcing a hotline where anyone could report information about Foley or any concerns about the page program.

"The buck stops here. The safety and security of the students in the page program is imperative," the statement said.

The number is (866) 348-0481.

Meanwhile, the House Ethics Committee held a closed-door session to try to determine when the congressional leadership became aware of Foley's inappropriate contacts with pages and whether the leaders acted to stem the behavior.

The FBI will interview a top congressional aide Thursday, the day after he resigned and said he had warned House leaders about Rep. Mark Foley's contacts with teenage pages before 2005, the aide's lawyer said.

Kirk Fordham, who resigned as chief of staff to Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds, will be questioned in the FBI's investigation into Foley's sexually explicit Internet correspondence with teenage male congressional pages, attorney Tim Heaphy said.

The interview will focus on whether Fordham knew of any possible crimes committed by Foley, Heaphy said.

Fordham was the top aide to Reynolds and once held the same job for Foley.

Aide denies he tried to intervene to help Foley
In a sharply worded statement issued after his resignation, Fordham denied intervening with the House Page Board on Foley's behalf and dropped a new bombshell: He had notified "senior staff at the highest levels" about concerns with the six-term GOP congressman earlier than 2005.

Scott Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff and one person Fordham said he had contacted, issued a terse statement.

"What Kirk Fordham said did not happen," he said.

Fordham's statement cast doubt on top GOP leaders' statements that they heard nothing of Foley's behavior before last year.

Fordham elaborated in an interview with ABC News, saying he told Palmer that Foley was too friendly with the pages, and that Palmer talked to Foley.

Hastert's spokesman Ron Bonjean told ABC News, "That [warning] never happened." (Watch how the scandal is threatening Speaker Hastert's leadership -- 2:07)

In a statement to CNN, Bonjean said only that "this matter has been referred to the Standards Committee and we fully expect that the bipartisan panel will do what it needs to do to investigate this matter and protect the integrity of the House." (Full story)

Foley, a six-term Florida Republican, resigned Friday after his e-mails to a teenage boy who had served as a congressional page became public -- and as ABC News was about to air more explicit records of instant messages the congressman exchanged with other pages.

ABC: Fordham tried to make a deal
ABC reported that Fordham offered the network an exclusive on Foley's resignation if it agreed not to air transcripts of the most explicit messages.

On Wednesday, citing unnamed GOP sources, it said Fordham had interceded with Republican leaders to keep the full three-member board that oversees the page program from learning about concerns raised by the family of a Louisiana teen.

Fordham's former boss, Rep. Reynolds, is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is working to keep the GOP in control of the House in November's elections. (Watch how Foley scandal is affecting races in other districts -- 2:51)

The scandal has not only rocked the Republican leadership but it has become an issue in Reynolds' upstate New York district just weeks before the vote.

"It is clear the Democrats are intent on making me a political issue in my boss's race, and I will not let them do so," Fordham wrote in his resignation letter.

Reynolds would not say Wednesday whether he asked Fordham to quit. However, Reynolds said he thought it was "inappropriate" for his chief of staff to negotiate with a news outlet over its coverage. And he said Fordham believed he was becoming a "distraction."

ABC also reported that Fordham's associates consider him a scapegoat for Hastert, R-Illinois, who has been sharply criticized for his handling of the issue. But Bonjean, a spokesman for the speaker, said Hastert had no advance knowledge of Fordham's resignation, nor did he demand it.

Hastert says he won't fold his tent
The resignation came as key conservative House members voiced support for Hastert but questioned how he handled the Foley matter. (Watch CNN political reporters weigh in on Hastert's future -- 7:49)

The call for Hastert's resignation came Tuesday in an editorial on The Washington Times Web site. The editorial charged that "either [Hastert] was grossly negligent ... or he deliberately looked the other way." (Full story)

Several key Republicans issued statements Wednesday supporting Hastert.

"I've talked to our members," Hastert told The Chicago Tribune in an interview Wednesday night. "Our members are supportive. I think that [resignation] is exactly what our opponents would like to have happen -- that I'd fold my tent and others would fold our tent and they would sweep the House."

"When the base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy," Hastert told the Tribune. "The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by [liberal activist] George Soros." (Watch the GOP defend Speaker Hastert -- 2:54)

He presents a big, juicy symbol for Democrats to use through November 7. A substitute for Tom Delay.

Not that we want to gloat (no, we never want to gloat :rolleyes: ), but last night I said to my husband that this whole scandal is sort of like a gift from God for the Dems., coming as it does, so close to the election.

So far, the Dems. have been silent about the whole thing. At least I haven't heard anything from them, and I think that's exactly as it should be. Let the Reps. dig their own hole. Their shovel is certainly big enough to do the job. :D

It's helpful to have a face and a name to place on corruption and political avarice. We have that in the White House but in 06 this should help in Congressional races :ph43r:

Luke, the Dark Side will destroy itself :blink:

And to think this arrogant SOB would become president if something happened to both frauds Bush and Cheney. :bad:

From Hastert's website:

Biography of Representative J. Dennis Hastert

Dennis Hastert rose to his position as Speaker of the House from the cornfields of Illinois. Born in Aurora, he grew up in Oswego and earned degrees from Wheaton College and Northern Illinois University. After 16 years of teaching and coaching at Yorkville High School, he served in the Illinois House of Representatives for six years before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. In 1999, Hastert's colleagues honored him by electing him Speaker of the House, the third highest elected official in the U.S. government.

Speaker Hastert, who turned 64 on January 2, 2006, is now serving his fourth term as Speaker and his tenth term as the Republican Congressman for Illinois' 14th Congressional District. Hastert's home district comprises a suburban landscape of high tech firms, small and large industrial complexes and expansive farm land west of Chicago, which includes the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan. The 14th Congressional District re-elected Hastert with an overwhelming majority in 2004.




This guy is the epitome of the "good old boy" crowd in Washington. Had there been just a nuanced change somewhere in his career, he'd be selling insurance, real estate, or vacuum cleaners or something.

I am disgusted to admit that my ancestors founded the city of Yorkville where this toad taught and coached, and my great-grandmother was one of the first female graduates of Wheaton College, a small fundamentalist college whose most notable graduate is Billy Graham.

Hastert managed to get himself to be the designated candidate in a district that had become heavily Republican due to the bizarre trend in the 70's /80's where working people and the aspiring middle class were pursuaded that it was their pathway to riches. I see a strong parallel between the ascension of the Republican party and the trend toward worship of riches in some fundamentalist churches described in a recent Time Magazine issue.

So he went to Washington with no qualifications whatsoever to lead the country on any issues of substance, and as in so many districts across the country, the home folks just kept sending him back and eventually he had seniority. The REAL power made him Speaker because he would be their puppet, just as they put bush in the White House. Whereas the Constitution envisioned that a popularly-selected "people's choice" would in turn be selected by all the representatives as their leader, and that made sense as the #3 in succession, instead we have this perverse process whereby this loser gets this far.

Hastert's initial comments blaming his troubles on George Soros got quickly squelched. He was scheduled to be interviewed on local radio (WGN) Wednesday; the story had broken about some aide saying he'd been told about Foley two years earlier and Hastert had made the comments about this all being the work of the Democrats. The talkshow host is a right-leaning guy - not a wacko though, the topics are rarely political, mostly just silliness. Anyway, Hastert didn't show. WGN kept calling his office, and being told he was "busy". The host was just ripping him a new one. Saying he had to show up; his constituents were waiting to hear from him, he'd made bad excuses, etc., etc. I just loved it. Somebody called in and brought up Clinton and Monica and the host ripped him a new one saying that ( A ) there was no comparison, Monica being of age and evidently a willing participant whereas this was a pedophile "trolling" and ( B ) Clinton was impeached, for gods sake, so how would that suggest this should not get attention?

I was just eating this up. So anyway Hastert stayed out of sight until midday yesterday, and came out with his "the buck stops here" statement. Wouldn't we like to know exactly who was working him over all that time? Rove maybe?

But make no mistake about it. This thing is not about Hastert and what he did or did not know. It is about how the machine will manipulate events to squirm collectively off the hook.

I'm not sure how this will unfold...

But I'd say it's good news for Dems that Hastert will not step down. More division among Republicans. More evidence they cannot regulate their own. One more face and name to run against.

I hope Dennis the Menace will hang in their until the voters in his own district hang him :clap:

"until the voters in his own district hang him"

I wouldn't count on that. Although I live in the adjoining, even more staunchly-republican district, and Tammy Duckworth's latest poll has her 5 points ahead!

I am going to go surfing and see what sacrifical lamb the dems have against him, whether there's a chance of a turnaround... I can certainly put some signs along hte highway or something.

From a local political blog:

Who' da Man? Denny's da Man!!
by: unagidon
Thu Oct 05, 2006 at 20:37:06 PM CDT

Shortly after returning to his office from the Republican Leadership Caucus in the basement of Poon's Lobster House in Washington DC (about which I shall report shortly in a two part special), Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert announced a news conference to be given from the steps of his office in Batavia, Illinois.

For six days the Speaker had been fighting a grueling battle against the liberal dominated press, which had stubbornly insisted on printing every single contradiction in Hastert's hundreds of explanations about his role in the Foley affair. Various rumors had been circulating about his health. He was, for example, rumored to be holed up in his palatial Plano estate in a dark room accompanied only by his two pet dogs and four hundred pounds of short ribs. Another rumor had him located at a Night Club called The Killing Fields in Kabul, Afghanistan, but this turned out to just be Senator Frist.

We were expecting the worst. But Denny positively bounded out to the speaker's platform, and I thought he looked damn good for a man who's been dead for five days....
unagidon :: Who' da Man? Denny's da Man!!
But would he fall on his sword? That's what the 327 reporters were that were there were hoping. You could hardly see the Secret Service guys for all the reporters, hardly. We all lapsed into silence when The Coach cleared his throat and... spit out a chicken bone. But he cleared his throat again and launched into a bold and defiant speech that left not a dry eye in the house.

Of course, not everyone was crying for the same reason. There was laughter, there was frustration, there was rage, there was the full gamut of emotions that have been experienced by those who have been following the Coach's activities these past years. But this was Classic Coach. HE was not going to resign. HE was not going to be beaten by a scandal that after all was started by Democratic operatives who selfishly revealed the depths of his corruption just before an election. HE was going to stay the course and like another politician in another context, if he had to go down, then he was going to take the entire Republican Party down with him...for the good of the country.

Well, I wasn't about to argue with that. But there hasn't been as big a news conference announcing absolutely nothing since, well, since George W Bush's State of the Union Address where he vowed to send all steroid using ball players to Mars. We stood watching him in breathless fascination. Would he split in two before he sank, like the Titanic? Or would he just collapse in one piece before the big explosion like the Tower of Sauron.

But he just walked away. And even the Fox reporter had a look on her face like one gets when the rubber dog turd you thought your kid put on your shoe as a joke turns out to be real.

As the reporters packed up and tried to figure out just what the hell they would tell their editors, the Fox reporter of all people happened upon a man standing at the edge of the crowd. It was John Laesch, Hastert's Democratic opponent in the election that is coming in just thirty days. It's not surprising that she didn't see him earlier. He's a decent man and they aren't used to see decent politicians in the general vicinity of Hastert's office. Laesch is no "player". He's not even a party guy. He's basically just a normal American who's ashamed of the mess that the biggest suck up Congress in the history of the United States has made of this country and our rights and he's doubly ashamed, no, he's extremely pissed off that the leader of this circus freak show is his own elected representative. Laesch has put everything he has, everything he owns, and everything he is into this race. Up until 5 days ago Hastert hasn't even glanced at him, so confident has he been that the good people of the district would just would automatically vote for the jolly fat guy in the baseball hat whose picture hangs over the cash register of almost every business in the district that has been open for more five years. But the Coach has pissed in his last hat. His friends and neighbors might tolerate an insane war, massive pork, and the destruction of the Bill of Rights, but they draw the line at hairy satyrs IM humping page boys in the same halls that saw the footsteps of Lincoln, the two Roosevelts and even by god Ronnie Reagan himself. If Hastert gets any votes, it will be from people who are too shocked to believe what they are now hearing each and every day and are succumbing to the all too human reaction of trying to turn the clock back to when they still could look at Denny ride by on the big fire truck without throwing their coats over the children's heads. Laesch wants to beat him because if there was ever a man who needed beating, it is Dennis Hastert. And I think he is going to do it.

One More:

Dennis Hastert: Gamblin' Man (+)
by: unagidon
Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 09:42:46 AM CDT

[subscribe]
It is becoming increasingly, abundantly clear that Dennis Hastert knew that there might be a chicken hawk loose in the henhouse and we can assume in all fairness that the former high school teacher weighed all the implications of this and decided that the public image of his political party outweighed all other considerations. So another scandal was swept under the rug.

But in doing this, Hastert was playing poker. He was gambling first of all that a sexual predator would keep himself under control. This looks to us like a sucker’s bet and is part of why we are astonished that he would take the word of a pervert and release him n his good behavior. There is nowhere else in the United States where we would give this kind of person this kind of benefit of the doubt.

But against this sucker bet, Hastert was gambling that Foley would at least control himself enough so that Hastert could control the message. With luck, and a couple of aces up his sleeve, maybe the thing would never come out at all. And Hastert thought he had those aces in the form of a neutered Ethics Committee and his control of the Page Committee (whose Democratic member was apparently not invited to the crucial meetings.)

This looked like a good bet, especially since the stakes were all about power and Hastert thought that he had all the cards. He may have had it in the back of his mind that one day he would face the Foley thing, but he acted like the man who keeps saying “Please Lord, just let me win one more time.”
unagidon :: Dennis Hastert: Gamblin' Man
But now the public is calling his hand and he looks down and sees a fist full of jokers. And now he is crying foul and blaming the other players for him losing in a game that he set up in the first place.

Hastert is like the man who ignored the lump on his groin and refused to see the doctor. The lump grew and grew and he promised himself that he would have it cut out as soon as he could find the time. Now, just as he’s putting on his good tie to go to the big birthday party, the Grim Reaper glides into the bedroom and puts his bony hand on Hastert’s shoulder. “Time to go, Coach.”

Hastert’s response to his losing hand is to tell the other players that they need to ignore this round. “This is not a good time to call my hand” he is saying. “For the good of America and the love of God, don’t call my hand.”

He is now telling the Right that if they let him win just one more time, he’ll do the clean up that he should have done months ago. And if you read Red State and some of the other Right Wings blogs (and listen to what some Republican Congressmen are saying in the news) some on the Right are starting to rally to this appeal. They are arguing in effect that it is somehow unfair that this particular scandal is coming out right now, just before a tight election. But this is Hastert’s fault. He could have dealt with this many times before this. He gambled that it wouldn’t blow up now and he lost. And like the man with the tumor, when death reaches out and touches you on the arm, you don’t get to go back in time and do it all over again.

As for the Right in America, they really have one problem and one problem only. They can’t seem to find politicians who actually practice what the Right preaches. Maybe this is just bad luck. Maybe they don’t care what they do as long as they say what they’re supposed to. Maybe there’s something wrong with what the Right is preaching. I don’t know. But one thing is for sure. If the Right doesn’t have the guts to turn out this crew of roaches that they have given control of their affairs, even if it means that they have to lose power for a while (but who said that doing the right thing isn’t hard sometimes), then their whole platform isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. And deep inside, they know this.

Of course all of these come from a "progressive" blog, but it is encouraging to find there even is one in this area. Perhaps all is not lost! It is the case that Chicago itself is a long-time Democratic stronghold, enough so to swing the entire state to "blue", despiite all the "downstaters" (meaning anything but Chicago) being staunchly Republican, except for a couple of small pockets.

Anyway, with the growth boom in these "collar counties" over the past few decades, thare has been absurd growth and sprawl of the "soccer mom" crowd in subdivisions covering former cornfields. They have been knee-jerk republicans til now, but some of hte areass in Hastert's district are starting to grow small enclaves of "progressives" and/or independents. Young people moving into rehabbed homes along hte Fox River, in communities with lots of art galleries and such. While I was aware of that, I didn't hold out much hope for there being much political activism. Maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning - turning into a tsunami1! If the Illinois 6th and 14th could BOTH go democrat, that would be HUGE. The message would be very loud and clear, to all of America. Henry Hyde's and Dennis Hastert's districts! Reagan's birthplace!

Don't forget, we have senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. And a democratic governor currently struggling with corruption investigations of his own, but who replaced a republican governor who just went to prison for his misdeeds in office.

I'm getting pumped. I SO believe that a big democrat sweep, major housecleaning "throwing the bums out" is what we need (for many reasons, but specifically) for Gore to just graciously nod and say, "all right, I'll take the job." Despite the fighting back we'd see from bushrovechenyrumsfield, if both houses were in dem control, AND the dem senators were concentrating on the problems at hand, rather than running, then maybe this country has a chance. Dem senators like Biden could look forward to positions in the Gore Administration to cap their careers, Hilary to the Maj Ldrship or a Cabinet post - her choice. Spend the two years cleaning up and forming a government, then just sweep into office!

Please don't let me wake up from this dream!

Meet the soon to be new leader of the house.

http://www.john06.com/media/20060809/1

if he is elected, he won't be a leader - he'll be a freshman and get the crap committees. What he'll do is warm a seat on the dem side, helping make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker

I would not want to be overconfident :ph43r:

But maybe there is now a real chance that John Laesch will beat Dennis the Menace. We will see.... Laesch could possibly get the majority of the Republican voters in Hastert's district. I don't see how Hastert can possibly come out of this situation smelling like a rose :football: :chicken:

The whale has to go ! :mad:

Hastert is too fat to step up or down. There were rumors that the seismic activities recently recorded were NOT due to North Korean nuclear test. It was Hastert that fell off his bed.

:clap:

Chicago Reader article on Laesch



The speaker of the House will be near impossible to beat, but 32-year-old navy vet John Laesch is hitting the road to convert voters one handshake at a time.

...32-year-old Democrat Jonathan “John” Laesch is playing David to Hastert’s Goliath this election year. He’s a Jeep-driving navy veteran, the son of Lutheran missionaries and brother of a GI currently on duty in Iraq, and an aggressive, confident campaigner with a door-to-door strategy. He may be a long shot, but a Democratic victory here would be an upset of biblical proportions. ...

Full Article