Talk:Dennis Hastert

It's always nice when merely disagreeing with someone's politics provokes people, like our vandal, to murderous insanity.

Someone please verify this. The running for president part threw me off:

He leads a quiet life in Yorkville, IL, at his home set on the Fox River. In fact, Hastert's code name is "Fox." Hastert still meets with his friends for breakfast when he is in Illinois.

Once learning that he would be the next Speaker of the House, Hastert set-out to create a dream-team staff. Using Scott Palmer as his base (Chief of Staff), he included John Feerey in his press-shop for spin control and Ted Van Der Meid to handle the Floor. Van Der Meid's experience with former Majority Leader Bob Michael helped Hastert turn the tables in his favor. Feerey has stopped literally all negative press.

Hastert clearly intends to run for the presidency in 2008 and has already amassed a war chest in excess of $70 million (for perspective, Bush spent about $100 million in 2000). Insiders say that he should have it wrapped up since Cheney does not intend to run.

One difficulty for Hastert is lack of name recongition with the general electorate. To remedy this, Hastert's campagin office is planning a preliminary "Balloon campaign." In late-2005, Americans for Hastert plans to fly 5000 hot air balloons saying "HASTERT!" over every major city (pop.>100,000) in the united states. The campaign will begin by flying all 5000 balloons in Miami, FL then moving all 5000 to Tallahasse, then to Atlanta and so on. The goal is to "Shield the sun from every city so that Americans can't help but know who Hastert is." Plans are also being made to take legislative action so that the FAA cannot prohibit such balloon activity.

Rosport

Actually, Dennis Hasters ancestors are ***not*** from Rosport but from Osweiler (Uesweller in our language) which is part of the municipality Rosport, close to Echternach, Luxembourg, Europe. Some days ago, he was here again. Thorben - Luxembourg

Soros

Is it really worth reporting what Soros does? The guy is a certifiable loon, after all. MSTCrow 02:48, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Tenure as Speaker of the House

His tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives lists three separate periods, each of which is separated only by a few days. While I'm sure this is useful information, perhaps simply listing his tenure as "1999–" and adding the details in a footnote, might make things clearer for readers? -- Vystrix Nexoth 06:05, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

New Orleans Rebuilding Controversy

This paragraph seems dated and not really relevant to the rest of the commentary (Speaker Hastert's comments regarding the rebuilding): "On September 2, Hastert was in Indiana attending a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Mark Souder rather than being in Washington leading the House of Representatives in voting on the Hurricane Katrina emergency appropriation bill. Nancy Pelosi has stated that Hastert refused to call a special session of Congress on Katrina as late as August 31."

I think it would be more appropriately located in an overall review of the Katrina response. Any objections / counterarguments? RB McLeroy 13:02, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't mind if you update to make it seem less dated, but Hastert's record on Katrina at the beginning of September is relevant to his role as speaker. --SeanO 16:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply[reply]