Breaking Story Hastert Speaks

Dennis Hastert R of Illinois, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, just a few moments ago gave a press conference in Batavia, IL at his home office.

He said he was sorry, and that he takes responsibility, basically the Buck Stops Here. But we know that already.

Claimed that the entire matter was turned over to the FBI for them to investigate, which we know will be stretched out until after the elections, and which will only look for what Federal Laws were broken, meaning they won’t worry about who knew what and when.

Hastert is now saying that no one let him know until last Friday Sept. 29th about the email, not single email and it had nothing bad in it. I say Bull.

Again note that he claims Shimkus asked Foley if there were any more messages and Foley said no. Looks like they are fishing for an angle that the press will buy and are attempting to divert attention from their own failures.

Like Shimkus, Hastert is parroting former President Nixon in saying “I haven’t done anything wrong”.

When asked about accountability, he said, “Thank you very much” and turned and walked away, ignoring at least three reporters who were attempting to ask questions. Given the seriousness of the situation one would expect him if he was honest in his statements to answer these questions, but no arrogance once again comes to the fore.

We want to know, who knew what, and when they knew it.

Hastert made three points, which were significant;
1. He didn’t repeat prior charges that the Democrats were behind the scandal.
2. Twice he said if a member of his staff were responsible they would be dealt with.
3. That Shimkus could have handled this differently.

I am willing to bet, that there will be several scapegoats on his staff singled out to cover his butt. That he is distancing himself from Shimkus somewhat.

By saying basically that the Buck Stops Here, it appears the Republican Leaders believe they can turn the campaign back to Republican talking points, and ignore this by claiming that its in the FBI’s hands which is a delaying tactic.

He avoided questions about Fordham of his staff that claims that he told the Speaker about Foley and emails three years ago.

Hastert also mentioned the House Ethics Committee, says they will look into whether any member of the House was involved… In what Dennis the cover up?

But since the House adjourned for campaigning until after the elections, it just means another delaying tactic. Since both Hastert and Shimkus have refused to resign their positions, they are hoping to win re-election. Here’s hoping they don’t, and that a Democratic controlled house can begin to investigate not only the two of them but the entire leadership and their actions since January 20th, 2001.

Can you think of a better reason to support their opponents?

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There is a dearth of Leadership in America on Bush's watch. Where is our President? We don't have one. Haven't had one since January 20, 2001. Not really. No one's manning our ship. America is a headless Giant--and as a result, we have lost a great deal of our stature in the World.

We can see the same poverty of leadership in the Mark Foley Pedophile Scandal. Here again, it is more important to hold onto political power than to do the morally correct thing. Representative Foley should have been thrown out of Congress years ago when he first began displaying a sexual attraction to underage pages. It is only now that the cat is out of the bag that the GOP is rushing forth calling for accountability.

ABC News has recently announced that they will begin naming names of who knew what and when. As well, more pages are coming out with saved messages from the past 5 years!

It is plain that the GOP's political machine cares only about preserving their political majority. Nothing and nobody else. Our children and our families can rot. These are the GOP's Family Values.

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People are asking how the latest Republican scandal affects Democrats strategy for November.

Let's make one thing clear -- Republican Congressman Mark Foley's inappropriate contacts with minors were the worst kind of abuse of power. Despite the Republicans' desperate damage control efforts, what America's parents see is a man who took advantage of children, and a Republican leadership that refused to act aggressively to fix the problem.

And we're learning more every day about Republican Leaders' failure to live up to the responsibilities of their own power, as revelations of a cover-up reach all the way from John Shimkus, up to Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The culture of corruption and cover-up has been the Republicans' problem for years. Two Republican Congressman have pleaded guilty to corruption, and investigations are ongoing into the scandal surrounding Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

That same culture reaches into the states, where Republican governors in places like Ohio and Kentucky have been indicted -- the Republican governor of Ohio even pleaded no contest to violating ethics laws, and in Illinois where former Governor George Ryan was convicted and sentenced to prison.

Whether the scandal is on Capitol Hill or in the state capitol, Americans everywhere know that it's time for new leadership.

Whether it's failing to ask the hard questions about sending our troops to war or failing to protect us here at home, America cannot afford to trust a Republican leadership whose response to every crisis the nation faces is to sweep it under the rug.

The Republican culture of corruption and cover-up has reigned for too long.

Democrats are ready to lead, and I hope you'll be a part of it.

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We Democrats for Stover

Sitting here reading a growing stack of news articles, Blog posts, and emails, it becomes obvious that Shimkus is hiding far more than is believed.

Shimkus and his lying has infected his staff as well. WPSD TV out of Paducah, attempted to locate Shimkus on Tuesday, Oct 3rd, and was told by his staff in Washington, that he was in the district giving a speech, when pressed for where this was taking place, the staffer said “we can’t tell you that”. Shimkus held his Help Desk Day in Vienna, Illinois Tuesday as well, WPSD showed up, but they were the only ones, the young lady there refused comment but said Shimkus was giving a talk at a school in the district. Come to find out, he wasn’t in District at all he was still in Washington, hiding from reporters and voters alike. We want, no we demand answers to questions concerning the alleged cover up of the Foley Scandal, I guess you would have to call this the Shimkus Scandal.

Another wrote about Shimkus voting with the big telecommunications companies to end net neutrality and the campaign contributions he received from those special interests hoping to make more money by gaining control of which websites work more quickly than others. Clearly, he has a bad habit of voting in favor of corporate special interests over the interests of the public.

John Shimkus approves of the slaughter of horses for human consumption, is breaking his term limit pledge, voted to impeach Clinton but didn't think much of a Congressman making sexual advances to under-age pages, and still thinks Bush didn't make any mistakes in Iraq. I would imagine that right now Shimkus is thanking the Illinois State Legislature for drawing him a district that votes more than 60% Republican. We'll see if party loyalty outweighs common sense in district 19 this year.

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"He gets it."

"That's our loyalty to Dean," [Donna] Brazile says. "He gets it."
For those whose political engagement took root with Howard Dean's presidential bid, Matt Bai's New York Times Magazine piece "The Inside Agitator" is a must read. The piece is an inside look at Dean's "50-State Strategy":
"We're going to be in places where the Democratic Party hasn't been in 25 years, Dean likes to say. "If you don't show up in 60 percent of the country, you don't win..." Dean argues that the 50-State Strategy is actually going to broaden the playing field in 2008. By the time the next nominee is crowned, he says, a field network will already be in place, covering most of the counties and precincts in the United States; flip a switch, and the whole grid will light up with activity, from Baton Rouge to Boise.

Of course it's probably not news that this plan is not exactly the toast of the Washington establishment since they are (understandably) all about the expediencies of 2008 electoral math:
Now, at power lunches and private meetings, perplexed Washington Democrats, the kind of people who have lorded over the party apparatus for decades, find themselves pondering the same bewildering questions. What on earth can Howard Dean be thinking? Does he really care about winning in November, or is he after something else?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the answer is he cares about both. Perhaps if you don't believe what you say enough that you end up talking to everyone who'll listen, you won't convince much of anyone you deserve their vote. Perhaps if you only care about electoral math and there isn't enough life in your ideas to want to share them with the good folks in Amarillo, Texas, it shows. So, Dean is off to Alabama and Alaska and Arkansas (sorry, couldn't resist). . . not states the Democratic party has exactly got in their pocket for '08.

Democrats do better with rural and small-town voters when they frame their positions as values rather than as policy prescriptions. This is not an entirely new insight, but to Dean it is critically important. In his mind, it means that any voter in any state can be a Democrat, if only you bother to talk to him, and if only you make the right kind of argument.

For all those who have been working in their community, away from the national gleam of the heady days of a presidential campaign, it might just be a pleasant surprise to find that Howard Dean is, in fact, working right there beside them:
"State parties are not the intermediaries," he said. "If I get them trained right, they're the principals." In other words. . . he was talking about "devolving" the national Democratic Party, in the same way that Reagan and other conservative ideologues had always talked about devolving the federal government and returning power to the states.

In these days where political "dialogue" is on national television rather than with our neighbors where the best ideas can take root and grow, where the two-party system has been mutated into a ratings grab akin to a WWF match (only possibly less believable), could be it's just about time to cut out the middle man.

Imagine the breathless stories about us getting along with each other.

Liz Herbert Joyner

Posted by DFA Staff at 09:45 AM
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