"A Cesspool of Deviancy": More Witnesses Test Jim Jordan Specious Denials

Witnesses indicate Jordan is lying about his knowledge of ongoing sexual abuse. 

Perhaps I should not gloat, but I love seeing morally bankrupt Republicans who willingly prostitute themselves to hate-filled Christian extremists and bloviate about "family values" self-immolate as the get caught up in sex scandals.   A perfect example is former House Speaker Dennis Hastert who was a sexual predator who was ultimate criminally convicted or abuse of your athletes. Another is former Virginia 2nd district congressman Ed Schrock who voted vociferously anti-gay and whined about sharing showers with gays - even as he was seeking gay sex trysts.  There are many other examples, but the one who may soon join the list of men like Hastert and Schrock is Ohio GOP Congressman Jim Jordan. Each time Jordan disclaims any knowledge of the sexual abuse engaged in by his boss, Ohio State wrestling coach Richard Strauss, a new witness appears who disputes his denials.  Now, additional allegations are surfacing which hopefully will ultimately lead to Jordan being driven from office.  A piece in Politico looks at the mushrooming scandal.  Here are excerpts:

New allegations in the Ohio State University sexual abuse scandal are threatening to intensify the political firestorm facing its onetime assistant wrestling coach, powerful GOP Rep. Jim Jordan.

A half-dozen ex-wrestlers told POLITICO they were regularly harassed in their training facility by sexually aggressive men who attended the university or worked there. The voyeurs would masturbate while watching the wrestlers shower or sit in the sauna, or engage in sexual acts in the areas where the athletes trained, the former wrestlers said.

Larkins Hall, the building that housed athletic teams, became such a well-known target that people who frequented it at the time have reminisced in anonymous postings online how easy it was to ogle naked members of the wrestling team.

The situation was so egregious that former wrestling head coach Russ Hellickson would at times have to physically drag the gawkers out of the building, several sources familiar with his actions at the time said. Hellickson also pleaded with the university multiple times to move their athletes to a private facility, the sources said. Jordan served as Hellickson’s No. 2 . . . .

The accusations could exacerbate Jordan’s troubles. He was the wrestling team’s assistant coach from 1986 to 1994 and has adamantly denied knowledge of any sexual abuse. . . . they said he would have had to know about it. One former wrestler told POLITICO he saw Jordan yell at male voyeurs to get out of the sauna, though Jordan’s office refuted this account. Even three wrestlers who defended Jordan said it would have been impossible for him not to notice the pervasive toxic atmosphere surrounding the team.

“Coaching my athletes in Larkins Hall was one of the most difficult things I ever did,” said a former wrestling coach who worked with Jordan but asked not to be named. “It was a cesspool of deviancy. And that’s a whole ’nother story that no one has addressed.”

Multiple former wrestlers have accused Jordan, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, of being among the faculty members who turned a blind eye to inappropriate behavior by the late Richard Strauss, the university’s former athletic doctor. Strauss allegedly preyed on male students during physicals, groping them to the point of making them ejaculate, according to one nurse who witnessed it and recounted the story in a video produced by alleged victims and obtained by POLITICO.

Ohio State has launched an investigation into Strauss’ behavior. Strauss worked at the university from 1978 to 1998. He killed himself in 2005.

Jordan has become the face of the controversy because of his current high profile as a leader of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus. But the Ohio State scandal, which first came to light in April, goes well beyond him.

Now, Jordan is one of the most powerful members of the House and a potential candidate for speaker. . . . He is close with President Donald Trump, who expressed his support for the Ohio Republican on Thursday night.

The controversy will continue next week when Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, and he is pressed by reporters for more information. . . . But Jordan’s denials have upset several of his former wrestlers, who want him to acknowledge what they felt as victims of sexual abuse.

Dunyasha Yetts, a former champion wrestler at the university, agreed that “sexual abuse” wasn’t used to describe what was occurring. But he accused Jordan of playing word games. Yetts said he was easily the most vocal person on the team to complain about Strauss and the Larkins Hall situation. Yetts claimed he not only told Jordan about Strauss’ behavior, but asked Jordan and Hellickson to confront the doctor with him.

At one point after being injured during his senior year, Yetts said he asked Jordan and Hellickson to come into Strauss’ examination room with him because he didn’t want to be fondled.

The Ohio State scandal — and talk of Jordan specifically — is tearing apart the university’s once tight-knit alumni wrestling network. Jordan’s former wrestlers are now warring publicly, with some accusing him of not doing enough to protect them and others coming to his defense.

DiSabato, however, is only one of several witnesses to have come forward. Even defenders of Jordan told POLITICO that the environment in Larkins Hall was abhorrent. Jordan used to work out with the students and use the sauna with them, even creating his own jocular “King of the Sauna” award at the end of the year for the wrestler who was best at trash talking his opponents and boasting of his successes post-practice. That’s why several wrestlers said it‘s implausible that Jordan didn’t see anything, despite his denials.

University spokesman Benjamin Johnson acknowledged in a statement that Ohio State is “aware of reports that individuals at the university did not respond appropriately during Richard Strauss’ time at Ohio State from 1978-1998” and said the school is investigating.

Again, I hope Jordan goes down. 

Missouri GOP Lawmakers Call On Embattled GOP Governor Amid Sex/Blackmail Scandal

"Family values" GOP Gov. Greitens accused of adultery and revenge porn blackmail

Time and time again over the years this blog has existed, there has been a cavalcade of "family values" Republicans caught in gay sex trysts (or in the case of former Speaker Dennis Hastert, sexual abuse), adultery scandals, and other sexual improprieties.  In the same interval, only a small handful of Democrats, if that number, have been swept up in sex scandals.  Now, the adultery and alleged blackmail scandal swirling around Missouri GOP governor Eric Greitens - he purportedly tied up his mistress naked and photographed her and then told her that he would spread the photos if she ever revealed their affair - is becoming so bad that his fellow Republicans are calling on him to resign from office. At least one episode of physical abuse is alleged to have occurred.  So much for true family values.  Here are highlights from Talking Points Memo:

Four Republican Missouri lawmakers have called for Gov. Eric Greitens (R) to step down over allegations that he attempted to blackmail a woman with whom he carried out a 2015 affair.

Reps. Kathy Conway, Marsha Haefner, Steve Cookson and Nate Walker separately issued statements Tuesday urging Greitens to leave office to avoid dragging his state into a protracted, messy scandal.

Walker’s call for the governor’s resignation is particularly significant since he was one of Greitens’ earliest supporters. . . . Former Missouri GOP chairman Ed Martin also called for Greitens to step down on his talk radio show on AM 1380 Tuesday afternoon, saying “the people deserve better.”

A longtime GOP operative in the state told TPM that, based on his conversations with sources in the State House, he expects the number of Republicans calling for the governor to step down will be “up to 10 trickling in through the day.”

“I think people are believing that there’s more things to come out—that if he did tie her up, the likelihood of another incident or something, in their minds, is higher.”

Greitens is accused of tying the woman to a piece of exercise equipment in the basement of his home and taking a nude photograph of her, then threatening to leak the photo if she went public about the affair.

Greitens acknowledged last week that he engaged in an extramarital affair, but has denied the blackmail and slapping allegations.

“The current scandal is believable given all the other stuff that’s gone on, the way he treats the press, the way he treats other Republican lawmakers,” Dave Robertson, head of the political science department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told TPM.

The Missouri Republican operative told TPM that GOP members of the state’s House of Representatives will meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss next steps, and are leaning towards launching their own investigation into Greitens’ alleged behavior.

City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced last week that she had launched a criminal probe. Al Watkins, an attorney for the woman’s ex-husband, told TPM he’d been contacted by Gardner’s office and the FBI.

Greitens and his wife, Sheena, made a round of calls to GOP lawmakers last week insisting that no further allegations would come out.

The Flagrant Sexual Hypocrisy of Conservative Republican Males

I make a point in many of my posts of highlighting the hypocrisy of Republicans who find themselves embroiled in sex related scandals for several reasons.  First, to point out that with the exception of Anthony Weiner, the scandals almost always involve Republicans, not Democrats.  Second, to underscore the hypocrisy of both those caught in the scandals, but also of those who vote for them.  These voters feign piety yet display a level of hypocrisy that would make the biblical Pharisees blush (e.g., the highest. use of Internet porn is in the Bible Belt; evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rate, etc.).  In the wake of "family values", "pro-life" Republican Tim Murphy's decision to resign his seat in Congress after being caught in an abortion scandal, a column in the New York Times offers a welcomed compilation of a number of Republican hypocrites.  Here are excerpts:

The most recent culprit in the category of anti-abortion double-think is Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who on Thursday announced he would resign from his House seat this month. Two days before, Mr. Murphy had voted for a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks on the medically dubious grounds that, at that age, a fetus can experience pain. 

Then The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published texts revealing that when Mr. Murphy’s mistress thought she was pregnant, he urged her to consider an abortion.

Sound familiar? Perhaps Mr. Murphy’s story calls to mind the Tennessee congressman Scott DesJarlais, who is similarly pro-life in the streets, pro-choice in the sheets.

In 2015, Mr. DesJarlais voted in favor of a 20-week ban, and boasted of a “100 percent pro-life voting record” while in Congress. Meanwhile, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that he supported his ex-wife’s decision to have two abortions (no word on how far along she was) and encouraged a patient with whom he was having an affair to terminate her pregnancy as well. Like Mr. Murphy, he is a co-sponsor of the abortion bill that passed on Tuesday. It’s a child, not a choice, abortion opponents tell us. Unless the pregnancy is embarrassing and super-inconvenient and an impediment to your political future, in which case it’s merely a clump of cells.
 The double standards employed by some members of the “do as I say, not as I do” Christian right are nothing new. Show me a senator who votes against gay marriage, and, at least in one infamous case, I’ll show you a guy who’s soliciting same-sex encounters in the airport men’s room. (Hello there, Larry Craig!)

Show me another Republican senator who made his name as a “pro-family advocate” and I’ll show you a guy whose phone number showed up in a Washington madam’s little black book. (Howdy, David Vitter!)

Show me the far-right speaker of the House, a man with perfect scores from the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition, and I’ll show you a guy who, as a high-school wrestling coach, set up a chair in front of the boys’ shower the better to ogle his protégés, and who was eventually jailed as a serial child molester. (Dennis Hastert, come on down!)

We’ve been down this road of duplicity before. The televangelist who prayed, alongside his wife, for the return of traditional morals, admitted to having sex with — and was accused of rape by — a 21-year-old church secretary, and found to have paid her $279,000. The congressman who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act was sexting with his underage male pages.

Scandals roll by so frequently that there is, by now, an expected script: the shocking revelation, the tearful confession, the up-from-the-ashes reinstatement plea or re-election campaign, garlanded with declarations of “God/my wife/Willie Robertson, star of ‘Duck Dynasty’ has forgiven me, why can’t you?” Perhaps the most shocking part of Mr. Murphy’s story is that he elected to quit, rather than scream “Fake news!” or sit back and wait for a new story to eclipse his hypocrisy, as Mr. DesJarlais did.

But what Mr. Murphy’s moral flexibility ultimately reveals is that, for these particular hard-line anti-abortion politicians, it’s not about fetal pain or the sanctity of life. It’s all about control — whether you’re telling a woman she can’t have an abortion, or forcing a woman to get one.

To this list we need to add former Virginia 2nd District Congressman Ed Schrock who voted anti-gay in Congress and meanwhile was seeking gay sex trysts.    Of course, there are even more than could be added to the list besides Schrock.

What Dennis Hastert Tells Us About Sexual Predators

While Christian Right extremists and the Catholic Church hierarchy consistently try to depict LGBT individuals as sexual predators who lurk in restrooms and other places seeking to molest children, these claims, like so much that comes from the lips of these "godly folk" are lies.  The truth is something very different, including the fact that most child molesters are heterosexual males. And in the context of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, having been raised Catholic and been an altar boy in the 1960's, I would argue that much of the abuse was due not to the alleged homosexuality of abusive priests, but rather the near psychotic obsession with repressive views on sex and sexuality within the Catholic clergy that created truly emotionally and psychologically disturbed individuals. The requirement of priestly celibacy only intensifies such dysfunction.  Indeed, it took years of therapy for me to overcome the brainwashing I received as a child and youth growing up Catholic. A piece in Chicago Tonight looks at the true profile of sexual molesters in the context of Dennis Hastert's admitted abuse of some of his students.  Here are excerpts:

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is going to prison for violating federal banking laws.

But at his sentencing yesterday, Hastert acknowledged that he sexually abused students during his time as a wrestling coach in far west suburban Yorkville.

Hastert's high-profile disgrace has renewed questions about the nature of sexual predators and what parents and communities should know about them.

Char Rivette is the executive director of the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center, which coordinates the efforts of child protection staff, law enforcement professionals and medical experts in dealing with an average of more than 2,000 child sexual abuse reports each year.

“In general, a common profile is that the perpetrators are known to these children. Over 90 percent of children who are sexually abused are abused by someone they know,” Rivette said. “It’s not rape by a stranger, it’s generally someone who has developed a relationship with this child, and usually their parents also, and who creates scenarios and contexts within which they can successfully groom and find situations where they can act out against these children.”

According to Rivette, Hastert might not fit the description of an outright psychopath or pedophile. But his apparent state of denial at Wednesday’s sentencing is common for an abuser.

“Obviously Hastert was a coach, a teacher, a citizen of the community and he had to know that deep-down what he was doing was wrong and harmful and inappropriate,” she said. “Yet he was still compelled to do these things, so he must have come up with rationalizations to just kind of get him through this and allow him to do this without the guilt, without the shame, without the understanding that what he was doing was harming these children.”

When it comes to the survivors, Rivette said, it’s also common for them to not speak out and to feel shame or guilt.

“If you are able to disclose and someone believes you, it’s a big key to actually getting trauma treatment and actually moving on. If you don’t, what I see is a lot of emotional struggles throughout life, a lot of inability to form healthy relationships as an older adult, really a lot of struggles with substance abuse,” she said.

But Rivette said the good news is that we’re getting better at addressing these issues in the wake of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal and now Dennis Hastert.

To stop sexual abuse of children, the first step is knowing who the predators are and not falling prey to animus based lies or psychotic sexual dogma.  It is also important to recognize that all too often the real predators are the very ones seeking to demonize and stigmatize others. I don't think it is a coincidence that sexual abuse by conservative Christian clergy is common despite all of their rantings against sex and sexuality.  The more they condemn something, the more likely they are to be the ones engaging in it or fantasizing about it. 

Dennis Hastert Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison Despite GOP Clemency Appeals

Dennis Hastert pictured at right

As noted recently, Republicans at both the state and federal level have sought tom demonize transgender individuals as would be sexual predators seeking to molest women and young girls in restroom facilities even as they have appealed to a federal judge to be lenient on admitted sexual molester Dennis Hastert, former GOP Speaker of the House - a man who was once second in line for the presidency in the event of the death or incapacity of the president and vice president of the United States.   Thankfully, the judge ignored these hypocrisy filled calls for leniency and Hastert was sentenced to 1 5 months in prison.  In truth, he should have been sentenced to at least a five year prison term, especially since he admitted to his sexual molestation of one of his students.  Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement: 

Dennis Hastert has just been sentenced in a hush money case involving his past sexual molestation of teenaged boys while he was a wrestling coach decades ago. A federal judge, calling the former Republican Speaker of the House a "serial child molester," sentenced him to two years of supervised release and 15 months jail time – not for his actions of sexual abuse, but for evading bank reporting requirements and making false statements to federal authorities.

In sentencing Hastert, Judge Thomas M. Durkin of the Northern District of Illinois also said the former Speaker should participate in a sex offender treatment program, CNN reports.

"I'm deeply ashamed to be standing before you here today," Hastert said in court during his sentencing. "I know I'm here because I mistreated some of my athletes as a coach." 

The court received dozens of letters of support from former [GOP] colleagues of Hastert, including one from Tom Delay, the former Senate Majority Leader who is now an anti-gay Christian activist.

"He is a good man that loves the Lord," DeLay wrote to the judge. "He gets his integrity and values from Him. He doesn't deserve what he is going through. I ask that you consider the man that is before you and give him leniency where you can."

Right Wing Watch reports that "days after the Supreme Court delivered its landmark marriage equality decision, DeLay claimed that he knew of 'a secret memo coming out of the Justice Department' that would legalize '12 new perversions,' including 'having sexual with little boys.'" 

 Sadly, I suspect that Hastert is but the tip of the ice berg when it comes to anti-LGBT Republicans who are either serial adulterers, seeking gay sex "on the down low" ore sexually molesting minors.  Hypocrisy and disingenuous lies are now a hallmark of today's GOP. 

Republicans Rush to Defend A Sexual Predator

Dennis Hastert - sexual predator

As a former Republican I still find it difficult at times to grasp just how filled with hypocrisy the Republican Party has become.   Democrats are far from perfect, but on the hypocrisy scale they are rank beginners.  Among the latest examples of the moral bankruptcy of the GOP is the rush by prominent Republicans to support sexual predator Dennis Hastert who molested at least four (4) students during his years as a high school wrestling coach.  "Family values" seemingly mean nothing beyond opposing LGBT rights and the right of women to have control of their own bodies.  A piece in Salon looks at the GOP cavalcade of hypocrisy.  Here are highlights:

On Wednesday, former Republican U.S. House speaker Dennis Hastert will be sentenced for his part in an elaborate hush money scheme to cover up his years long molestation of teenage boys while he was a Illinois high school wrestling coach from 1965 until 1981. But if his fellow Republicans have their way — he won’t see a minute of prison time.

According to federal prosecutors, Hastert “made payments to a man who was sexually abused at age 14 by Hastert when he was the boy’s wrestling coach. Prosecutors said the abuse also involved ‘other minors,’ and included touching their genitals or engaging in oral sex.” Court filings in Hastert’s case highlighted “private one-on-one encounters in an empty locker room and a motel room with minors that violated the special trust between those young boys and their coach.”

The Republican firebrand is charged with lying to FBI investigators about a tax-evading scheme to pay $3.5 million to keep at least one former student quiet about the abuse before falsely accusing the man of trying to extort him. Hastert pleaded guilty to illegally structuring $900,000 used as hush money to the one individual, a violation of banking laws. Prosecutors are now seeking the harshest possible penalty, asking that the 74-year-old Hastert be sentenced to six months in prison while his attorneys are asking for probation. A former wrestler who said Hastert abused him decades ago is expected to speak at Hastert’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

Still, the longest serving Republican House Speaker in American history has prominent Republican friends rushing to publicly back him even as he’s accused of being a serial child molester.

A list of the names of people who wrote to support Hastert was made public in court Friday, complete with over 40 letters of support for Hastert from the likes of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the head wresting coach of the University of Chicago. Hastert’s defense team said he had received more than 60 letters of support for Hastert in recent months, but nearly 20 writers did not want their letters made public or had requested their letters be “withdrawn” from consideration after disturbing details of Hastert’s pedophilia emerged. (The Chicago Tribune published all of the letters released, and they may be found here):

Hastert’s supporters included a handful of former national and state politicians as well as local leaders, board members, police officers and others from his home base in rural Kendall County.

“We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few,” DeLay wrote in his defense of Hastert. “He is a good man that loves the Lord.”

“He doesn’t deserve what he is going through,” the Texas Republican who served as majority leader under Hastert in the early 2000s and who ran into his own legal problems argued. “I ask that you consider the man that is before you and give him leniency where you can.”

In addition to DeLay, Hastert’s former Republican colleagues Reps. Thomas Ewing, David Dreier, Porter Goss and John Doolittle also petitioned the court on his behalf.

“Denny Hastert and I were as close as brothers, sharing our goals, ambitions, and our family life, both the ups and the downs,” Ewing wrote, noting that they lived together in Washington D.C. and Springfield, Illinois. “I know him as a man of faith, integrity and honesty. He was an extremely hard worker, always willing to extend a helping hand to others.

As the New York Times reported over last week, Hastert’s work on Capitol Hill allowed him the cover to keep secret his decades long abuse of boys . . .

Tyrone Fahner, a former Illinois attorney general, called Hastert “a kind, strong, principled, and unselfish man,” and asked the court “to permit him to live the rest of his life in freedom with his family and friends, and all those who love and admire him.”

Shortly after Hastert was indicted on federal charges in 2015, Politico dug through the former speaker’s archive and found he kept a file in his office titled “Homosexuals” that reportedly was “filled with policy statements from social conservative groups like the Traditional Values Coalition and the Family Research Council that criticized same-sex marriage and Clinton administration efforts to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians” and included a rambling 1996 National Review column, “Pedophilia Chic,” warning of  “hip” and “sophisticated” liberal media outlets who give “pedophiles a place at the table” and put in a “good word for Nambla.”

Let's be clear: Hastert deserves to get far more than the maximum sentence.  Indeed, 20 years to life sounds about right to me. The man is a monster.  Moreover, while he was covering up his own past criminal behavior and molestation of minors, Hastert was doing all in his power to back anti-LGBT laws.  As for references to Hastert being "a man of faith," please get me a vomit bag.  A man of faith would NEVER have molested youths the way Hastert did. Lock him up!!

Dennis Hastert Demonized Gays While He Was the True Predator

Dennis Hastert is the poster boy for all of the anti-gay Republicans who demonize and strive to stigmatize gays even as they seek gay sex on the down low or, in the case of Hastert, molest under aged boys.  Indeed, the pattern is so consistent, that the "godly folk" - if they had any brains (admittedly, a very big if) - ought to start immediately questioning Republicans who jump on the anti-gay bandwagon.   A piece by Michelangelo Signorile at Huffington Post looks at the utter hypocrisy of Hastert - and by extension other GOP homophobes.  Here are column excerpts:

No, it wasn’t African-American young men of the ‘90s — supposedly feral, “fatherless” and “godless” urban youth hell-bent on murder and mayhem — who were “super-predators,” a myth since exposed and which was created by the Princeton political science professor John DiIulio (who later became George W. Bush’s first director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives) based on junk science.

The same twisted ideas that led to the “super-predator” myth, which we’ve seen raised and debunked again during the current Democratic primary race amid discussion of the 1994 crime bill, have been used by anti-LGBT religious conservatives to argue against marriage equality. They promoted the notion that gays would destroy “traditional marriage,” which supposedly would contribute to a breakdown in the family, causing deviant and dangerous consequences.

Some of those arguments against marriage equality were informed by a similarly debunked myth that gay men are likely to be sexual predators, the lie perpetuated by anti-LGBT hate mongers for decades, using junk science to exploit and further rampant homophobia in society in same the way the “super-predator” myth used it to exploit and further racism.

Meanwhile, the true example of a “super-predator” appears to have been former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a man who prosecutors now say molested at least 4 boys, including a 14-year-old and one who years later took his own life.

Worse yet, through the years, as he covered up the sexual assaults he committed as a wrestling coach back in Yorkville, Illinois, Hastert pushed policies and positions as a House member and as the Speaker of a far-right GOP majority from 1999 to 2007 that demonized gays in part by portraying gay men as sexual predators.

[As] a Politico report last year . . .  revealed that Hastert had a file in his office labeled “Homosexuals,” which included the sexual predator smear against gay men:

The records show that Hastert’s office kept a legislative file titled “Homosexuals,” filled with policy statements from social conservative groups like the Traditional Values Coalition and the Family Research Council that criticized same-sex marriage and Clinton administration efforts to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. The file also includes a 1996 Weekly Standard article, “Pedophilia Chic” that warned that “revisionist suggestions about pedophilia” were being embraced by the left.

The scurrilous Weekly Standard piece raged on about teens supposedly being lured into sex by adult gay men. The Family Research Council, whose statements filled Hastert’s “Homosexuals” file, has perpetuated the lie that gays are more likely to engage in sexual assault against boys — among the defamatory claims that earned it the label of “hate group“ by the Southern Poverty law Center — and its leader, Tony Perkins, has called pedophilia “a homosexual problem.”

The Hastert story is revolting on so many levels. He sexually assaulted boys who trusted him as their wrestling coach, scarring them for life. And while he covered it up over a period of decades, he also assaulted an entire minority group that was under a barrage of attacks from religious conservatives, continually denying them civil rights and demonizing them and pummeling gay people over and over again, with bill after bill, informed by lie after lie. If there’s a true definition of a super-predator, Dennis Hastert is it.

If there is a Hell, Hastert should have a special reserved seat - along with all the predator Catholic priests and the Popes, cardinals, bishops and others who covered up for them and aided and abetted their molestation of children and minors.  They are all cut from the same hypocrisy filled cloth. 

Prosecutors Give Details on Dennis Hastert’s Sexual Abuse of Teenagers

As is often noted on this blog, if one is worried about stopping sexual predators, the focus should be on anti-gay Republican politicians (and conservative religious leaders), not gays and/or transgender individuals.  Over and over again we see GOP politicians with anti-gay voting records who espouse "family values" being caught having affairs, seeking gay sex, or in the case of former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, sexually molesting minors.  The Washington Post has details on Hastert's sexual misconduct that set the state for his attempts to pay over $3 million in hush money to one of his former victims.  Here are excerpts:

Federal prosecutors on Friday detailed some of the lurid allegations of sexual misconduct against former U.S. House speaker Dennis Hastert and asked a federal judge to subject the Illinois Republican to a sex offender evaluation.

In a memo in advance of an April 27 sentencing hearing, prosecutors spelled out in graphic detail how Hastert sexually molested or inappropriately touched five teenagers who trusted him as their wrestling coach. And as Hastert rose to power, believing that his wrongdoing would never be made public, his victims struggled with the effects of the abuse, prosecutors wrote.

“He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty and devoid of dignity,” prosecutors wrote. “While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it, these boys struggled, Hastert, 74, pleaded guilty last year to violating federal banking laws, admitting in a deal with prosecutors that he withdrew money from banks in increments low enough to avoid mandatory reporting requirements. Thatcharge, though, always belied the case’s actual underpinnings.and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them.”

A federal law enforcement official has said Hastert withdrew the money so he could pay off someone he sexually molested decades ago. And after the first victim emerged, more people came forward alleging that they or their relatives were also victimized by the Yorkville, Ill., high school teacher and coach.

Prosecutors detailed remarkably similar stories from each of the now-grown men.

One — who said he was a 14-year-old freshman when the abuse occurred — alleged that Hastert told him to get on a table so he could “loosen him up,” then massaged and performed a sex act on him. Another — who said he was 17 years old when the abuse occurred — alleged that Hastert offered him a massage to help him cut weight, then performed a sex act on him. That victim said Hastert kept a chair in direct view of the locker room shower stalls.

“The federal and state statutes of limitations have long expired on potential charges relating to defendant’s known sexual acts against Individual A and other minors,” prosecutors wrote. “With this case, the government seeks to hold defendant accountable for the crimes he committed . . . . 

Sadly, Hastert is the poster boy for the hypocrisy of anti-gay Republicans who make a mockery of the professed devotion to "family values."  I have zero sympathy for Hastert.

Hastert Would Serve Prison Time Under Plea Deal

As the House Republicans continue in total disarray as they await Paul Ryan's decision as to whether or not he wants to be a masochist and accept the position of Speaker of the House in the face of the growing insanity of the Republican Party, it is right and just - to use a phrase from the Catholic liturgy - to remember the hypocrisy of the so-called "family values" Republicans who do not practice what they preach.  A case in point is former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert who is under federal indictment for  banking law violations that arose from his hush money being paid to a former male student with whom Hastert allegedly had inappropriate sexual contact back in his years as a high school coach.  Politico looks at the plea deal being offered by the feds.  Here are excerpts:

Federal prosecutors in Chicago want former House Speaker Dennis Hastert to serve prison time to resolve a criminal indictment charging he violated federal banking law when he withdrew about $900,000 in cash to pay to an unnamed associate as part of an effort to cover up past [sexual] misconduct [with a minor], sources said.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors are negotiating a plea deal that they will bring before U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, according to sources close to the case. The deal, details of which are still emerging, would likely call for Hastert to spend more than a year behind bars, one source said.

Hastert, who retired from the House in 2007, was indicted in May on charges of structuring bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and lying to the FBI about what he did with the money. The indictment said that between 2012 and 2014 Hastert withdrew $952,000 in increments of less than $10,000 after a bank official warned him that larger amounts would be reported to federal authorities. The federal charges said the money was part of $1.7 million the former speaker paid and a total of $3.5 million he promised to pay to compensate for "past misconduct" against a longtime acquaintance and to compensate for that misdeed.

The federal charges don't detail what Hastert allegedly did to trigger the request for compensation, but they do note that he worked as a teacher and coach at a high school in Yorkville, Ill. before entering politics 35 years ago. Press accounts quoting anonymous sources have claimed that Hastert's "misconduct" involved sexual contact with a male student, but Hastert's attorneys have complained bitterly that those stories came from improper law enforcement leaks.

Many experts expected Hastert to cut a plea deal to avoid the publicity and additional embarrassment a trial could bring, But some thought the 73-year-old former speaker would negotiate an agreement with prosecutors that would involve a period of home confinement and probation rather than prison time.

Some skeptics of the federal bank reporting requirements have criticized the federal indictment, describing it as an effort to punish Hastert for alleged sexual crimes that can't be charged now because the statutes of limitations has passed. However, courts have upheld the use of the law even in case where the government makes no allegation of wrongdoing besides the way the cash transactions were broken up.

Personally, I have no sympathy for Hastert.  And let's get real.  No one promises to pay $3.5 million for past "misconduct" unless that misconduct is very, very damaging.  Thus, the allegations of sexual misconduct with a former student seem to reach that level of gravity.  The other thing that I will note - as I have in the past - is that 9 times out of 10 it is the "family values" Republicans who seem to always be engaging in illicit and/or gay sex even as they lie to constituents and prostitute themselves to the Christofascist elements of the GOP base.

There is Nothing Gay About Hastert's Hypocrisy

The "godly folk" who are always in the vanguard fighting against LGBT rights and equality ALWAYS trying to conflate being gay with being a child molester.  The reality, of course, is that the majority of child molesters are straight males, not gays.  I would further argue - as I have in past posts - that it is almost always the repressed, closeted individuals who seem to get caught up in sex scandals.  Further, the molestation of minors often, if not always, involves an adult in a position of power taking advantage of minors unable to  fend off such advantages or who fear no one will believe them as Steve Reinhold reportedly stated to his sister.  The real hypocrisy, therefore, is that it is more times than not "family values" Republicans or their allies who are preaching to others about how they should be living their lives while not walking the walk, if you will, themselves.  A column in Washington Post looks at the real nature of Hastert's hypocrisy.  Here are excerpts:

In discussing the scandal engulfing former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who is due in court this week, one thing must be made absolutely clear. What he is alleged to have done to young boys has absolutely nothing to do with being gay or gay rights.

Almost immediately after the news broke of Hastert’s indictment, folks looked to Congress for signs of hypocrisy. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, made an assertion during an appearance on Huffington Post Live last Monday that was flat-out inappropriate.

He is wrong to make a link between gay rights and the accusations of immorality against Hastert.

What Hastert allegedly did has nothing to do with being gay or the push by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans to ensure that equal protection under the law applies to them. What he allegedly did — sexually abusing a number of underage boys — was criminal. The same goes for reality television star and conservative moralist Josh Duggar, who admitted sexually molesting young girls, including several of his sisters, when he was a teenager. His sexual orientation doesn’t factor into the scandal coverage because it is irrelevant.

LGBT adults do not pose an automatic danger to children. Some people still refuse to accept this. That’s why branding Hastert a hypocrite now because he opposed LGBT rights as speaker is a leap I refuse to take.

[W]here Frank gets it right is on the moral hypocrisy displayed by Hastert and so many other holier-than-thou Republicans thundering about values. Frank reminded “Hardball” host Chris Matthews that Speaker Hastert followed a line of flawed House leaders who pushed for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Hastert was the third guy to be speaker. First, you had Newt Gingrich, who was having an affair with his third wife cheating on his second wife with whom he cheated on his first wife. And you then … had Bob Livingston who had to quit because he had had sex with a lobbyist. So…these people leading the charge against Clinton. Clinton was the choir boy.

Alleged sexual abuse of minors is at the center of the Hastert scandal. And that’s where the focus should remain.

Sexual Predatory Dennis Hastert Helped Push GOP's Anti-Gay Agenda

Don't ask me why, but the Republican Party seems to be a magnet for self-loathing closeted gays - and even sexual predators like Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House of Representatives.  I've never understood the mindset of those who seek political advantage by making the lives of others as horrible as possible, yet that is definitely the way of today's GOP which plays on hate, racism, homophobia and bigotry of every form to push its agenda of creating a new Gilded Age.  The list of these self-loathing gays is long and, in my view includes some not yet "outed" such as Ken Cuccinelli and Rick Santorum who are just too hysterical about gays for someone who doesn't have personal psycho-sexual issues going on.  The Huffington Post looks at the way Denns Hastert assisted the GOP's anti-gay agenda even while guarding his secret that he was not only gay, but a sexual predator who preyed on boys.  Here are highlights:

During the 2004 elections, George W. Bush's campaign, managed by a closeted gay man, pushed a series of anti-gay ballot initiatives across the country. The House of Representatives, led by a male speaker who allegedly sexually assaulted a male minor, moved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage after beating back attempts to strengthen hate crimes legislation. And the White House, led in part by a vice president with a lesbian daughter, eagerly encouraged a conservative evangelical base hostile to gay rights.

Though only slightly over a decade ago, that election seems increasingly like the relic of a far-off era as the country moves closer toward acceptance of legalizing marriage equality nationwide. But it's being revisited in light of recent revelations that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) may have sexually abused at least two male students during his time as a high school teacher and wrestling coach, and later lied to the FBI about the hush money he was paying one of them.

[Hastert] was a vital cog in the anti-gay political machinery that the GOP deployed for political benefit. And now it appears his involvement carried the same elements of duplicity and deceit as that of other Republican operatives of that era. 

"The hypocrisy is breathtaking in its depth," said Elizabeth Birch, former president of the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

As speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007, Hastert didn't just go along and vote the party line on various bills; he decided which pieces of legislation made it to the floor for a vote. During his tenure, he was a clear foe of the LGBT community. 

That Hastert was allegedly hiding a sordid past wasn't known at the time, though rumors were beginning to spread. Still, those who lobbied on the bill picked up odd clues that hold more meaning now.

"I once sat in a meeting with Denny Hastert where he literally teared up in front of Judy and Dennis Shepard [Matthew's parents] and committed to doing everything he could to pass the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill and then literally did nothing. Didn't lift a finger," recalled Birch.
Hastert continued opening the gateways for anti-gay legislation in the years that followed. In 2004, Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Hastert brought it to the floor even though he predicted that passage would be difficult since it required the approval of two-thirds of Congress. 


Those who were on the other side of the fight aren't so quick, however, to let bygones be bygones. On MSNBC Friday, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), himself gay, said that he did not excuse Hastert's alleged actions -- "the teacher taking advantage of students" -- but that the episode made him think of how destructive homophobia has been. 

"Leave aside from the fact the illegitimate nature of the fact that it was a teacher-student relationship that should not have happened," said Frank, who added that it seemed Hastert may have been bisexual. "But the gay sex in itself obviously, it was something which back then was considered so scandalous that Hastert couldn't do it in an -- in a kind of an open way."

Do I want to see Hastert crucified?  Most definitely!  He abused minors and then lied to the world and worked to harm other gays.  A stunning example needs to be made of him.  And other politicians like him - think Lindsey Graham, the Palmetto Queen - need to be outed.    I have no use whatsoever for these warped bastards.

At Least One of Dennis Hastert Sex Abuse Victims Named by Family

Hastert and victim

The gay sex scandal swirling around former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert continues to grow as the family of one now deceased victim of abuse has come forward.  The actual individual - who many assume to be yet another Hastert victim - remains unidentified.   In grasping the full hypocrisy of Hastert it is important to remember that Hastert consistently voted against gay rights measures just like former Virginia 2nd District congressman Ed Schrock whom I helped to "out."  In Schrock's defense, at least he wasn't insidiously preying on minors like Hastert.  Schrock was a total hypocrite, but he wasn't a sexual predator. Again, it is noteworthy that it is almost always the "conservative," "family values" Republicans who are the ones that become embroiled in gay sex scandals.  ABC News has details on this development.  Here are highlights:

In Steve Reinboldt’s 1970 high school yearbook, wrestling coach Dennis Hastert wrote that Steve was his “great, right hand man” as the student equipment manager of the Yorkville, Illinois wrestling team. 

But Steve was also a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Hastert, Steve’s sister said Friday in an interview with ABC News. It is the first time an alleged Hastert victim has been identified by name since his indictment for lying to the FBI and violating federal banking laws to cover-up past misconduct. Hastert, due in court next week, has not responded to the allegations. 

In an emotional interview, Steve Reinboldt’s sister Jolene said she first learned of her late brother’s purported years-long sexual abuse at the hands of the future Speaker of the House back in 1979 when her brother revealed to her that he was gay and had been out of high school for eight years. 

Jolene said she asked her brother why he never told anyone. “And he just turned around and kind of looked at me and said, ‘Who is ever going to believe me?’”  

Jolene said that Steve told her the abuse lasted throughout Steve’s four years of high school as he served as team student manager. “Mr. Hastert had plenty of opportunities to be alone with Steve, because he was there before the meets,” she said. “He was there after everything because he did the laundry, the uniforms. So he was there by himself with him,” she added. 

Her brother also spent time with Hastert as a member of an Explorers troop, which Hastert ran. Photos taken by her brother show Hastert with a group of boys on a diving trip to the Bahamas.

Reinboldt’s sister says she has no doubts about the veracity of what her brother told her 36 years ago. 

Jolene said she believes the abuse ended when Steve moved away after his high school graduation in 1971. Reinboldt died of AIDS in 1995. She believes Hastert’s alleged actions irrevocably changed Steve's life for the worse. 

“He took his belief in himself and his kind of right to be a normal person,” Jolene said. “Here was the mentor, the man who was, you know, basically his friend and stepped into that parental role, who was the one who was abusing him… He damaged Steve I think more than any of us will ever know.”

Her anger boiled over when she said Hastert was so “brash” as to show up at Steve’s funeral viewing.

“I was just there just trying to bite my tongue thinking that blood was coming out because I was just… So after he had gone through the line I followed him out into the parking lot of the funeral home,” Jolene said. “I said, ‘I want to know why you did what you did to my brother.’ And he just stood there and stared at me. He didn’t say, ‘What are you talking about?’ you know, [or], ‘What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He just stood there and stared at me. 

“Then I just continued to say, ‘I want you to know your secret didn’t die in there with my brother. And I want you to remember that I’m out here and that I know.’ And again, he just stood there and he did not say a word.”  Hastert got in his car and drove away. Jolene said Hastert’s non-response “said everything.”

[F]or years, Jolene watched helplessly as Hastert basked in fame and power, seated to the left of the president for years in the early 2000s for the nationally-televised State of the Union address.

“I would just watch for a while and then I would just have to get up and leave the room and just, you know, either cry or scream,” Jolene said. “I can’t believe the audacity of that man and how he thinks he will get away with it.”

PHOTO: Dennis Hastert, right, plays cards with members of the Explorer's Club in the Bahamas.

Hastert at State of the Union

It's a sad and disturbing story much like that of priest who abused minors for years - often with the aiding and abetting of the Church hierarchy.   The ultimate irony is that the far right accuses gays of preying on or "recruiting" children and youths.  Gays who are out and open in their lives do not need to prey on youth and those we can intimidate like the Hasterts and predator priests of this world.  It is they, not gays, who are a threat to children and youths.  And, if the "godly Christians" would cease their war on gays, people like Hastert would hopefully not feel compelled to live hypocritcal double lives and there would be far fewer Steve Reinboldts.  Meanwhile, I wonder how many other victims Hastert preyed upon.

How "Public Servant" Hastert Got His Riches

In addition to the surprise over the indictment of former House Speaker that raised the issue of Hastert's past sexual abuse of a male student, many have been surprised at how a former school teacher and coach was in a position to be paying millions in hush money.  The answer, of course, is Washington's revolving door which allows former elected officials to reap millions after retirement to work for lobbying firms and other organizations.  Hastert in more ways than one represents what's wrong with Washington today. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how Hastert became wealthy as have far too many politicians.  Here are excerpts:

It’s clear that the indictment of Dennis Hastert has raised more questions than it’s provided answers. But I suspect a lot of people are asking the wrong ones. Hastert’s “misconduct” may turn out to be of sexually predatory nature, in which case talk of how much his reputation is worth is picayune compared the nature of crime. But there are questions about what he did that are applicable to the entire industry he represents.

The most obvious question, that’s also the least relevant for most Americans: What is the “misconduct” that Hastert is alleged to have been trying to cover up?

If the conduct was sexual abuse, as sources are saying, then the statute of limitations has run out. It follows that Hastert wasn’t paying hush money to stay out of jail, he was protecting his reputation.

A better question, and one that many Washington watchdogs leapt on quickly: How did Hastert happen to have enough money lying around that paying out $3.5 million was even within the realm of possibility?

Hastert’s ability to participate in the blackmail is, after all, itself a general indictment of D.C.’s “revolving door” money culture, in which former lawmakers move easily from government into lobbying. In Hastert’s case, the ability to profit off of one’s legislative position is especially galling: While in office, Hastert used the earmarking process to turn his investment in some Illinois farmland into a profit of 140 percent when a federal highway project just happened to make its way through those very fields. Indeed, it was this instance of a completely legal form of insider trading that helped prompt Congress to end earmarks.

And, of course, Hastert made even more money once he was out of office. One study found that, on average—and when the information is publicly available—former lawmakers get a 1,425 percent raise when they make the jump from Capitol Hill to K Street. Hastert, who was worth between $4 million and $17 million when he left Congress, was making $175,000 as a representative. His K Street bump would be to almost $2.5 million a year.

And, it’s important to remember, what Hastert was covering up with that hush money was not a “reputation” as an average citizen might conceive of it: something akin to honor or trustworthiness or fidelity. A lobbyist’s reputation, after all, actually hinges on his or her established lack of principles. A lobbying client for someone who is a former member of Congress is paying a premium for that person’s willingness to engage in barely-legal favor-trading. A lobbyist’s prices go up the more corrupt he is. Who wants to hire an honest one?

The Men Who Led The Impeachment Of Bill Clinton

In follow up to the last post and the "quote of the day," a piece in Think Progress looks at what is now known about the Republican Party leadership in the House of Representatives that led the effort to impeach Bill Clinton.  All, of course, once claimed to support "family values" and to support the "sanctity of marriage."  All turned out to be complete hypocrites.  Frankly, its to the point that when I hear a Republican blathering about "family values," I figure it's only a matter of time before they are caught having an adulterous affair or cruising for gay sex on the sly.  Of course, self-loathing closet cases Rick Santorum and Ken Cuccinelli are in a league of their own when it comes to being utterly obsessed with gay sex.  Here are article highlights:

On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton on two charges related to his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. (The charges were for perjury and obstruction of justice.) The historic vote, and subsequent trial in the Senate, involved the work of three men who were elected Speaker of the House Of Representatives by the Republican majority, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston and Dennis Hastert. 

Almost 17 years later, with the federal indictment of Hastert for illegally concealing up to $3.5 million in hush-money, we finally have a more complete understanding of the men who led this effort.

Newt Gingrich

Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) led the push for Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Following a disappointing election in November 1998, he announced he was stepping down as Speaker and resigning from Congress.

Gingrich later admitted that, while he was pushing for Clinton’s impeachment, he was engaged in an affair with a Congressional aide. “There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them,” Gingrich said in 2007. He later said the situation was “complex and, obviously, I wasn’t doing things to be proud of.”

Bob Livingston

After Gingrich announced his resignation, Republicans unanimously selected Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) to succeed him. 

On the day of the impeachment vote, Livingston announced he was resigning following revelations that he had engaged in an extramarital affair. According to Hustler Magazine Publisher Larry Flint, who offered a reward for information about the sex lives of members of Congress, he “found four women who said they had been involved with Mr. Livingston over the last 10 years.”

Dennis Hastert

Following Livingston’s resignation, which occurred on the same day the House voted on impeachment, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) quickly gained support of the Republican leadership to succeed him as Speaker-designate. He began formally serving as speaker in January 1999, and held that role while the Senate conducted their trial on the articles of impeachment.

On Thursday, Hastert was indicted on charges that he illegally structured $1.7 million in payments to an individual in an attempt to cover up prior misconduct. According to reports, the payments were allegedly intended to “conceal sexual abuse against a former male student he knew during his days as a teacher in Yorkville, Ill.” The LA Times also reported that “investigators also spoke with a second man who raised similar allegations that corroborated what the former student said.”

The bigger question, of course, is why anyone sane believes anything these  "family values" politicians have to say.