Free Republic

Did Denny Hastert, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, really think he could get away with it? He must have. He kept paying and paying, until the FBI came knocking, asking about all that cash he was withdrawing from his bank accounts. And you know the rest. Whether you consider it hush money to cover up sexual misconduct when he was a teacher and coach, or an attempt to right what he considered to be the wrongs of his past, there's one thing we do know:

Bill Daley leaving the Obama administration was big news for ten minutes. But as my friend Streetwise Professor and I discussed on Twitter after the news broke, this really signals a big change in direction on how Obama will campaign. It’s going to get really ugly. How ugly? Think of the election cycle from 1796-1804. It will be that ugly. The culmination of those election cycles was a duel by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, with Hamilton losing his life after the gun battle.Both Hamilton and Jefferson manipulated the press of that time to scandalize the other side. Character assassination...

Pundits glued to their Potomac seats, applying their usual Beltway explanations for everything that happens in America, would have it that House Speaker Dennis Hastert bollixed up the House page scandal because he is an unredeemed Republican partisan. Or that he doesn't care enough about congressmen hounding boys. Or that his conservatism made him do it.Blind partisanship, moral failings, hypocrisy, gay bashing or any of those other explanations that don't come close to the reality that Hastert was simply doing politics as it is practiced here, in Illinois.Hastert knows no other way, having been bred, born and raised in the...

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Chicago. The Illinois Republican, 73, is charged with trying to evade cash withdrawal requirements, and with lying to the FBI about it.

Rezko whistleblower still has no hospital, five years after the factBy Rob Olmstead | Daily Herald StaffContact writer Published: 6/8/2008 12:04 AMSend To: It takes two to tango. Illinoisans are fond of complaining about political corruption, but what if the businesses and individuals who came in contact with politicians seeking bribes refused to play ball and ratted them out? If Edward Hospital CEO Pamela Davis of Naperville is any example, the lesson is doing the right thing is a double-edged sword. Davis was the company CEO who felt she was being shaken down by construction company executive Jacob Kieferbaum when...