of course its not blackmail! how could you blackmail somebody who did nothing wrong! just doing it out of the kindness of his heart. that's why it all had to be a secret. charity should be anonymous you know. that way only god knows.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

That's probably because she's incredible. Think about it for a minute. Your brother comes out of the closet and you ask him who his first homosexual experience was with. Do you actually believe that is how the conversation would go? Again (and again and again and again) I don't give a shit about Hastert. I'm sure he's a scumbag. But this sounds like a straight up shakedown, pure opportunism. And how convenient that the brother isn't alive.



But are you really being fair here? Or are you just jumping to conclusions? It's no one's business what the guy does with his money. We really don't have the facts. Individual A might be a woman. Or it might be a grown man that Hastert had a relationship with. Either of those things might be "inappropriate" but they really aren't the business of the government.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

My mom apparently knew the dead guy B pretty well in JuCo. Weird.

_________________
That's my purse! I don't know you!

Someone owes taxes on that money.

If it was a gift, then Hastert owes.

You seem to be tone deaf to the fact that Hastert broke the law. And the government never stepped in until he did. It troubles me far more that a child molester was walking around and the FBI had to have had some knowledge of that, and they chose to say or do nothing about it.

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I may be mistaken, but I don't think there's a tax issue. At least on Hastert's side. Maybe the person who received the money owes taxes.

You're assuming he's a child molester. We haven't seen any evidence to suggest that he is. You're jumping to conclusions because, well, why else would a guy give someone all that money? As I said, we don't even know if Individual A was a man or a woman.

And I know he "broke the law", but it's a bad law. I'm more disturbed that lying comes so much more naturally for politicians than telling the truth. Clinton should have just said, "Don't worry about my sex life. That's between me and all the broads who are blowing me."

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

There is now evidence that he is a child molester.

_________________

Where is it? Do you have a link?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

And I'll say this much, Seacrest- Hastert looks like a child molester. But that's not a legal opinion. Just my emotions and biases about what a molester might look like.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Maybe Louis CK is right.

_________________

We have the sister of a guy that is dead.

And the feds know of least one more.

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I think the sister of the dead guy is full of shit. Maybe she read the story and thought she could use her dead brother to shake out some sort of settlement. It just doesn't ring true. He brother comes out of the closet and she asks him about the first guy he blew? Who does that?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

She does.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fbi-inter ... s-hastert/

She has zero legal standing to shake a plug nickel from Denny Hastert.

_________________

So the Feds are just using the lying charge because they can't get him for molesting? If true, I have no issue with that, but I still don't like the way they got there.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

He lied. He has no one but himself to blame for his legal predicament.

The whole thing sheds light on something far more important though. After all the cries about priests getting away with molesting kids, there is still no national or local law that I'm aware of that extends the statute of limitations on child molesters. It's not unreasonable to wonder how many more Hastert types are wandering around the nation's Capital.

_________________

I just can't have any empathy for a pedophile or a rapist ..no matter if an FBI agent snuck into somebody's bedroom n read their diary n exposed one of these scumbags.


However ... Realism says the quickest way for a promotion and get recognized is to take down a dirty cop or dirty politician.

_________________

Fuck Hastert. But that isn't the point. The government shouldn't be asking anyone about their money. The fact that he helped craft the law may be sweet justice in this specific instance but it will be no consolation when jackbooted thugs kick your door down.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm broke ..ain't happening to me . But I understand your point .

_________________

It would be a bad idea to extend the statute of limitations. Seven years (or whatever it is) should be plenty of time to come forward with accusations. Anything longer makes it very hard for the accused to defend themselves, at least in the court of public opinion.

_________________

In the court of public opinion, the accusation itself is now tantamount to being fact.

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Not sure if it was posted in the previous 6 pages but what I understand to be a major league screw up on Hastert's part (if true), is lying to the FBI.

My son has a top secret security clearance in the Navy and they were all told by by senior officers to lie to your wives & girlfriends but NEVER to Scully & Mulder when being questioned for your clearance and subsequent follow up interviews.

Major league mistake, Denny.

_________________
"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

So a 7 year old has until he is 14?.....Great idea!

How about you dont molest kids and if you do if costs you a lifetime of shit?

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I agree with bigfan , I bet it takes a decade or 2 for most of these people to come to terms with it n talking about it. . treat it like arson , murder .. no statute of limitations.

_________________

Maybe they will exempt members of congress....they seem to be good at that for certain things.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

You are so correct sir.

" Am I a witness, a subject or a target?" That's the only conversation that you ever need to have with the FBI.

And it appears that Denny thought he was above it all and could talk his way around it.

_________________

This isn't about protecting molesters. It's about making sure someone can adequately defend themselves. How would you like it if someone accused you of something (that you didn't do) from 30 years ago? Witnesses (or even the accuser/victim) could be dead, evidence that could exonerate you is gone, etc. Even direct eyewitness testimony is suspect. Hell, even CURRENT eyewitness testimony is usually questioned, let alone something that happened decades ago.

(I do consider Hastert guilty based on the payoffs...)

_________________

I understand the shame, which goes both ways in this case and it would suck.

But 7 years is not even close to wjat it should be. MAybe if something happened under 10, then add on 25 years. I have no problem of saying that if you chose to not deal with by 35, as a basis to discuss.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Yeah, that's a logical conclusion. I think the court of public opinion has already rendered its verdict. And the Feds have allowed certain information to leak in order to achieve their objectives.

But the actual justice system can't be run like an angry mob. What if Hastert expressed his love and desire to a young male student 35 years ago and there was never an actual physical relationship. As he began his rise in politics, Hastert was smart enough to realize this guy could sink him and beyond that he still had feelings for the guy. So he began to give him money. It wasn't exactly blackmail and it wasn't really a crime. That's just one possibility. You may think that's weird, but the whole thing is weird. We just really don't know the facts.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

The justice department is generally a disgusting group of self righteous pricks. They frequently find no guilt where they were originally looking but they will not be deterred that you are guilty of something. They audit your life with the full power of the federal government in order to maintain their world view. The first wave is usually the IRS. Then they like to audit your personal relationships and squeeze your friends for information about you if they happen to have anything in their past that makes them vulnerable. If they do get to trial, well, we've seen several cases of prosecutorial misconduct in the past few years because, damnit, if a prosecutor gets an L on his record, all those big paying private jobs go out the door.

It doesn't help that the media treats them like they are heroes. This weekend we had cover stories about the PROSECUTORS of this case. Meanwhile, the case in chief is a chip shot and most likely will not be tried.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

there's so much bad shit going down around us, DOJ catches only .001% of it. They make an example out of people. It is political. But I don't feel sorry for the bad guys. you have to be really really stupid to get caught. GREED + STUPIDITY = not a good combo

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

and what about the not bad guys

There was an example just this year of them dragging some suburban pol through the mud and having nothing. Then, instead of apologizing, they got him for the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

Anyway everyone fits the DOJ definition of "bad guy" that you accept. We are all in violation of something at some point in our lives

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.