Hastert No Longer Under the Radar.

That's right. I was struck by all the flaming arrows going Denny's way as I checked the LeftyBlogs/Illinois listing this morning.

Good deal. But I'll be taking it all a notch higher very soon.

Pretty soon, we'll be seeing what kind of a coach (or a thin-skinned pussy) Hastert really is.

I have no doubts, as I've witnessed in the past, Denny Hastert can dish it out, but he can't take it. At all.

And "Hello" again to all my new friends clicking in from Washington.

Now, Wait Just a Darned Minute...

I'm still in "this week" territory.

A number of people have emailed already (enough already!) about missing my self-imposed deadline of posting something of national importance this week.

You should know that I think the weekend is still "this week" because usually "next week" begins on Monday.

Relax. Enjoy. Keep dropping in and laying down the comments. I wasn't just teasing.

Hastert and the Environment.

Funny thing about Denny Hastert and the nation's environment. He has no environmental voting record.

His routine response on the issue is along the lines of "... vote information from special interest groups..." but we know differently.

For more than 15 years, the Hasterts lived on a prime piece of property on US Route 34, almost directly at the end of Bristol Ridge Road. That means nothing to anyone who lives outside the area (sort of like Hastert himself), but to those who know him, that meant Denny didn't have far to go to stuff himself and tip a few back down at the Bristol Tap (which is a great place, btw).

The southeast side of Hastert's old property (which is now Yorkville, but only "technically" referred to as Yorkville when he lived there) is bounded by the Fox River, a fairly shallow but brisk river that runs through about 170 miles of Wisconsin and Illinois.

One other important thing about the Fox River is that it's an endangered waterway.

Now, funny that I note it's endangered. Technically, it's not anymore. But in 1999 (coincidentally, the year Hastert accidentally became Speaker) it was placed at number seven on the list of endangered waterways in the U.S., having been polluted so badly by lawn chemicals, sewage, runoff and by industrial waste from the Dial Corporation in Montgomery, Illinois. Dial had plenty of company, too; a number of other industrial sites dumped manufacturing waste in the Fox for years.

And, oh my goodness, yes. On the other side of the Fox River are two Superfund sites. I almost forgot about them.

Now, does it make sense that a guy who would live so close to lead-infested, EPA-inspected sites, and who for many years lived on a piece of land lapped upon by polluted waters is not voting on environmental issues?

I didn't think so, either. But that's still not the big issue I alluded to the other day.

This is just a little eye-opener that people outside IL CD-14 don't know much about.

Now you do.

Hastert Shows His Stripes.

They are yellow. They are dirty.

All you have to do to chronicle Denny Hastert's decades of political wheeling and dealing is look at what he's shown us the last two days.

Yesterday was his dark-hearted "compromise" which very selectively left a tiny portion of school lunch money in the budget for poor children. That allowed him to claim a "victory" on the budget vote (by only two votes) away from the watchful eye of the public, in another vote held open (for as long as it takes) at 1:45 a.m. today.

This dark-of-the-night vote did not cut a dollar of the graft money Hastert and Don Young swallowed whole from your pockets for their own wasteful highway and bridge plans at home.

Today these two actions color the character of this mean-spirited, lying political animal just perfectly. No one is going to forget this demagoguery when attacking a man who has shown 1,000 times the courage and leadership Denny Hastert has ever mustered. Let's not forget Denny's "football knee" kept him out of VietNam, while Murza was highly decorated in combat in Southeast Asia.

Also today, after a near-defeat on the budget bill, Hastert took a moment to stab at House Democrats in another fine example of his demagogic style:

“Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle disagree. In fact, this bill gives us a pretty clear picture of what they are for. They are for raising taxes writing blank checks creating bigger government and saddling our children with mountains of debt. By opposing this bill, they are for disrupting America’s economic stability – the same stability that has given our workers jobs and paychecks to care for their families.

“Theirs is the wrong solution for America."

Denny: We've had enough of your "coaching" skills. And this is your style, no doubt. As a "coach," you're the kind of dirty, lowdown sonofabitch who would embarrass Bobby Knight.

Deleto Alito.

Not part of the House's responsibility, sure. But if you need a good reason to remove his name from the bidding, aside from the anti-affirmative action, anti-choice views he holds, try this on for size.

He's an alien.

Swear to God, if he twitches his head and says, "Jenny," I'll fill my shorts.

The Pig at the Trough.

This is the kind of stuff that has made me so sick and God-Damned tired of Denny Hastert.

There are so many questions that I could throw out, but underneath it all is the really big one:

If campaign finance has not been turned into a grand, "legalized" form of money-laundering, why in the world does a guy like Denny Hastert, who wins 3:1 in his safe district, need a $100,000 donation from a crooked, smarmy little bastard like Jack Abramoff.

OK. That's a really loaded "single" question, but you just can't distill one issue from all Denny Hastert's crooked dealings.

And the really amazing part: He won't even answer the charges. And as I continue to point out, his answer to everything is, "Hey, I'm out of the loop."

Crash and Burn.

You could also say that there's an excrement storm that's raining down on Denny right now.

Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow.

Riveting.

Here's a sample of Denny the Blooger's bog that has millions of readers absolutely magnetized this week:

House Happenings This Week
posted by Denny Hastert @ 9:19am (11/2/05) | Section: Speaker’s Posts

Hi to all you out there.

Welcome back to my blog. I hope everyone had a safe Halloween. And I would like to offer my condolences again to the family of Rosa Parks. She gave a lot to our nation and her legacy lives on.

There has been a lot going on since I last checked in. Democrats are busy saying no to every proposal out there. Those of us in the House GOP are busy in another way. We’re passing legislation. We’re getting work done.

Today we’re taking up the Online Freedom of Speech Act. It’s a good bill. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate are supporting it.

Among the four posts there (that's the total since it went up), two are supposedly entered by Hastert.

This is Funny.

Denny the Blogger.

These guys can't stop lying about anything, can they?

Cutting and Running from New Orleans

Happy Thanksgiving, you poor, miserable bastards! We're not paying for your hotel rooms anymore! Get out!

I got yer two-week notice right here, baby.

So says FEMA, in announcing they're cutting one of the few programs they've actually cost-tracked in the wake of Katrina.

And a relatively inexpensive one, at that. If you consider that FEMA has spent about $278 million to house families in hotels since the end of August, that means every man, woman and child in the U.S. has pitched in about a buck for that worthy effort so far.

Compare that to the billions upon billions of dollars that are unaccounted for through sweetheart no-bid contracts, and much of the money that's flowed into the Gulf Coast region so far, and it's pretty clear where this government's priorities are.

And Denny Hastert has absolutely nothing to say about it.

So is it a parallel set of priorities that we haven't figured out yet -- another sick strategy? Or is it more like you don't have the political nerve (or capital) to stand up?

Or is it that you really don't care?

Which is it, Denny?

Hastert on "Cut and Run" Government:

"We can't allow the terrorists to shake our resolve," Hastert says in one way or another (in one riveting press release or another).

So we can't "cut and run" from Iraq, goes the so-called reasoning.

But when it comes to FEMA's abandonment of a far less expensive proposition, such as providing housing for the whole communities the President and Fristy-Hastert have left behind in the wake of Katrina, he says nothing.

Here's a tip: stop using these jingoistic phrases (which, by the way, no longer "resonate" in the voter's head the way you intend) and start doing something that follows common sense.

Denny and Jean Hastert

Appear to have had sex only two times during their combined 120+ years on earth. One time was code-named Josh, the other, Ethan.

Think about it. The "Speaker's" absence from the discussion of the FDA's handy decision on the "Plan B" drugs clearly bears that out.

What these people want is for everything right down to your basic sexual act to follow the letter of Jerry Falwell's Holy Bible, where sex is an act God intended to be used only for procreation.

I'm sorry. Is that too personal? Too intrusive?

Wonder how you'd feel if I was the Federal Government making such a statement?

Jesus, I'm Essential.

Inside Dope may have only changed the headings on the blogroll, maybe done some consolidation, but I never noticed this before today: I'm listed at the top of the "Essential Sites.

Holy Crap! Thanks, Dope!

I've never been "essential" before. I'm going to enjoy a beverage now. I may even pay for it.

Teaser

I love to tease. At some point this week, I'll be adding something to the site of national importance. I had hoped to unwrap it on the 1st of November, then it was the 15th...

And while I would like to stay focused on IL CD-14 (it is, primarily), it will have national implications.

All I can say is that at some point this week, I'm going to start something that's going to turn a lot of heads at the national level.

Get ready. And Helloooo! To all my friends at house.gov visiting the blog this week!

Hi!

Hastert Slams Pelosi, Democrats on Innovation

Call him the Anti-Innovation, Anti-Technology Speaker.

Nancy Pelosi unveils a plan for putting government squarely behind innovation and technology by providing broadband "no more than a keystroke or a mouse click away from the jobs and opportunity broadband both creates and supports," and gets slammed by Hastert.

Funny, when George W. Bush announced a more expensive plan in April 2004, Denny Hastert was mum. The following week, he OK'd Bush's $50 Billion request for military expenditures in Iraq.

Honestly now. Isn't that tired old "tax and spend" saw getting just a little worn out?

Denny Hastert has taxed and spent the middle class of this country into a future of ruin, piling up a national debt that will be well beyond $10 trillion by the time he and George W. Bush are out of office.

McCain Has a Sense of Humor.

The link to the Daily Show clip is very funny.

I'm no McCain fan, though, for one simple reason.

When he had a chance to stand up for America and help kick George W. Bush's ass out of the White House, he chose the Republican Party and his possible future over Americans.

I have nothing but pure respect for the man who endured torture at the hands of the VC. I like his sense of humor.

I will vilify him if he runs for President. I hope you'll join me.

Denny Hastert's America

A popular theme, I know. This Salon.com investigative report documents Halliburton's legalized hiring of undocumented Latinos they are alleged to have fed only one meal a day, later not paid, then thrown out to fend for themselves.

The investigative piece notes that Bush re-instated the Davis-Bacon act on 11/3.

Some of us are wondering, however, how Denny Hastert's multi-million dollar press operation failed to ever voice a single word of the slightest discomfort on the part of the Speaker when the President of the United States suspended laws that protect workers, and by decree.

Here are two nice parts to consider (the Salon.com subscription is worth it for the rest):

Halliburton/KBR is the general contractor with overarching responsibility for the federal cleanup contracts covering Katrina-damaged naval bases. Even so, there is an utter lack of transparency with the process -- and that invites malfeasance, says James Hale, a vice president of the Laborers' International Union of North America. "To my knowledge, not one member of Congress has been able to get their hands on a copy of a contract that was handed out to Halliburton or others," Hale says. "There is no central registry of Katrina contracts available. No data on the jobs or scope of the work." Hale says that his union's legislative staff has pressed members of Congress for more information; apparently the legislators were told that they could not get copies of the contracts because of "national security" concerns.
...
"They were going to pay seven dollars an hour, and the food was going to be free, and rent, but they gave us nothing," says the thin Zapotec teenager. Simitrio spent nearly a month at the Seabee base. "They weren't feeding us. We ate cookies for five days. Cookies, nothing else," he says.

Nice oversight, Denny.

What "national security issues" prevent disclosure of this information?

Poll Analysis.

This is so funny, I can't stand it!

IL CD-14 voters, however, will have the last laugh! They'll vote for Denny Hastert because they believe he's honest, believable, and thinks for himself!

Guess again.

Denny Hastert has become such an ugly politcal animal over the past two decades he's been accepting his Welfare Check, no one in IL CD-14 really knows him anymore.

Can You Spot Hastert's Weakness?

See if you can spot in his voting record one single little, eensie-weensie tiny vote that shows Denny's Gigantic Weakness.

I can't even hint, it's so obvious.

OK. There are really, like, five issues, that show what an idiot he is, but one looms large.

One issue. Come on.

Hastert's "buddy" Jerry Weller.

So, he's not only married into a mob family, it's a marriage of convenience, many say. Denny Hastert's reliable vote, Jerry Weller, says Karie at Kankakee Voices is just "obsessed with (his) wife."

Sure. Obsessed with your wife.

Everyone in Illinois should be obsessed with this man's choices, and his ability to vote in the House of Representatives - with no compunction, mind you - on matters that concern our government's trade with that of his wife.

Why does Denny Hastert encourage this behavior?

Denny Hastert's America

More broken promises for America's seniors; Clusterfuck D enrollment begins today.

If anyone could have possibly given seniors a more confusing set of "choices" disguised as a benefit, I don't know how it could possibly get any worse than the total Clusterfuck (D) we've been given.

Then again, I'm not counting on any government benefits being around when I'm old and eating cat food in the back of a God-Damned trailer retired. How anyone in the Republican party can hold their heads up after swindling taxpayers and robbing the Federal Treasury under the guise of "helping seniors" is beyond me.

Perhaps a day will come when the signs on all the roads entering Kendall County will lionize Denny Hastert as the man responsible for giving us "Medicare Part D."

Perhaps instead of the bland "Home of the Speaker of the House," they'll tout Kendall County as the "Home of the Disgraced, Lying Sonofabitch Who Cost Taxpayers Trillions of Dollars That We'll Never Pay Off."

I doubt it.