* Wikipedia posts [Dennis] Hastert’s teaching career from 1965-81.
One of the four victims was the equipment manager, Steve Remboldt, who died of AIDS in 1995. He graduated in 1971. His sister believes that “Individual A”, the one who blackmailed Hastert, knew about Rembolt. (I don’t know if sister has solid grounds to know that.)
The others seem to describe a massage that ended with a “sexual act”. There wasn’t as much information about homosexuality in the 1960s–there wasn’t as much information period. So a trusted coach giving a therapeutic massage; which turns into a “happy ending”, it’s not immediately obvious to a teenage boy how to feel. (Obviously having your crank yanked felt good, but other than that). Did he “do anything to you”? Well, he did something for you…
Homosexuality was still classified as a mental disorder. My guess is that Coach didn’t come across as mentally disordered. He wasn’t crossdressing or kissing little boys. He was a big buff tough football/wrestling coach.
So maybe that’s part of the medical treatment? IS it any weirder than drinking raw eggs? (IF you don’t know anything about how sexual predators operate.) But on the whole, no thanks coach, I don’t think I want another massage.
That’s my uninformed guess as to why the kids didn’t fight him off, or say anything.
* Hastert was never on trial for sexual abuse. He was not indicted/convicted of any such crime. It is an absolute disgrace for the prosecutor to release such information to the public. The allegations were never proven in a court of law, civil or criminal.
Hastert’s bank withdrawals of his own dam money were flagged ( probably by his bank to FINCEN) because his was withdrawing numerous amounts under the 10k reporting requirement.
To make matters worse, Hastert made statements to the FBI. You never talk the the FBI or any police person without a lawyer. It is insane if you do.
Just ask Thomas Drake who reported a billion dollars of waste at the NSA and made voluntary statements to the FBI. The FBI with the help of the US Attorney used those same statements and charged Drake with espionage.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4389857/thomas-drakes-npc-luncheon-speech
Hastert pled guilty to structuring bank withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements and making false statements to federal investigators.
Hard to wrap your head around a case where the victim of extortion goes to jail and the extortionist is lauded a hero.
A law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.
“Don’t talk to the Police.”
* I worked for a decade in the Middle East. You learn something very quickly in that world: Find yourself in legal problems and there is something wrong with your politics, nothing more. Otherwise, you would have continued to live exempt from the law.
As we relentlessly drive to become a Third World Country, we are finding ourselves and our legal system in similar circumstances. There was something wrong with Dennis Hastert’s politics, nothing more.
* The Hastert prosecution has politics written all over it. My theory, for which I admit I have no proof save for the timing, was that it was a warning to Chief Justice John Roberts to vote for an interpretation of Obamacare that permitted federal insurance exchanges. Roberts’s votes on Obamacare have been very strange and difficult to explain save a potential blackmail threat.
* There was nothing strange about Roberts’ decisions on Obamacare. Did you notice that health stocks were getting killed when people realized that Obamacare might actually get struck down? Have you heard businesspeople complaining about how our complicated employer-funded system of health care makes it harder for them to compete with businesses from countries with functioning national health care?
Roberts was nominated and confirmed in 2005, before Obamacare existed and when Obama was barely a glimmer on the horizon. Roberts was nominated because he was a sure vote for expansive government authority (particularly executive authority in aid of the GWOT), he would take the right side of the culture wars, and he would be hostile to campaign finance regulation. On all of those subjects, he’s been as reliable as a Swiss watch. So far so good, but no one foresaw that Obamacare would be one of the biggest cases of his tenure. It shouldn’t have stunned anyone, however, that a friend of letting the government do what it wants decided to let it have its way this time, too.
Part of the foolishness of these kinds of theories is that they presume striking down Obamacare would have been bad for Democrats. On the contrary, it would have been catastrophic for Republicans and the Supreme Court. Same as the 1992 abortion case where Souter, O’Connor, and Kennedy joined together to save Roe v. Wade.
