Clearly, a very important official.  Yet, Hastert has been indicted on criminal charges involving "prior misconduct"--charges shrouded in mystery and stripped of details, at the request, in part, of the Hastert attorney.  The predictable speculation was apparently balanced by the merits of postponement.  

But, the indictment's reference, to the exclusion of most other aspects of Hastert's extensive biography, of an Individual A, from the olden days when Hastert was a wrestling coach, and both were linked to the small town, Yorkville, Illinois,  does give even the  sinus-impacted blood hound a strong scent.

And, the mystery is compounded by the fact that Hastert was indicted (Bank Secrecy Act 1970/Patriot Act provisions),  Usually, the person being shaken down is considered the victim, and the one doing the shaking down is the criminal.   And, all to amend for and conceal this $3.5 million  "prior misconduct"  (seemingly, a term apt to personal matters, not to a crime such as bribery, bank fraud, or embezzlement).

The indictment of Hastert, for me, puts a lie to the argument that is made that high ranking officials cannot be held accountable for misdeeds even after leaving office.  It was said that Nixon, for example, could not be prosecuted after leaving office--it would destroy the country.  He needed to be pardoned--the national nightmare was over. Just wake up, now.

 We would be like a banana republic, it has been said, cannot do it.  Let them go.  And, of course, not only was impeachment off the table for Bush and Cheney, in which the penalty would be for them to lose a nice job, but, also, no indictments could ever be entertained.

Manhattanhenge, the moment when the setting sun aligns precisely with the street grid in Manhattan, can be seen this weekend.

Half the sun will align with the grid on Friday at 8:12 p.m., and the full-sun Manhattanhenge will happen the same time on Saturday, according to the Hayden Planetarium.

On a clear day, the typical resulting effect of Manhattanhenge is a "radiant glow of light" across the skyscrapers and buildings, "simultaneously illuminating both the north and south sides of every cross street of the borough's grid," according to Hayden Planetarium.

Link

And linked in that same article was this interesting headline:

9 Brains Found Next to Train Tracks in NY

Nine brains were found along a street in a northern New York village, but authorities say there's nothing to fear.

The brains are believed to have been part of a collection for educational or research purposes. No criminal activity is suspected. Residents discovered the brains on a street near railroad tracks in Governeur and notified police Wednesday.

My favorite part of the article?  This:

Mishaps with preserved brains are not uncommon.

by Matt Tiabi, Rolling Stone

I'd say this will be a no-holds-barred review, but I promised myself I wouldn't compare this book to Mein Kampf for at least 500 words. So it's not completely without restrictions.

Most of The Story is a tale of dog after scheming dog eating Miller's homework. Sometimes it's editor Roger Cohen undermining her, or columnist Maureen Dowd side-eying her (at the direction of the paper, she implies), or Post media critic Howard Kurtz defaming her based (she thinks) on Gellman's intel, or unknown colleagues within the Times viciously leaking her infamous email about Ahmad Chalabi being the source of most of the Times scoops, etc., etc.

It isn't until May or June of 2003 - chapter 17, in The Story time - that Miller begins wondering if CIA analysts, who had "severely underestimated" Saddam's weapons cache before the first Gulf War, had maybe "grossly exaggerated" them this time. (This rhetorical technique - always reminding us that some prior act of hyper-vigilance would have been justified, before conceding to some later instance of over-credulity - is used throughout the book.)

I mean, really incoherent.

The only point that seems cogent to me is the one she makes about Obama - that the movie didn't live up to the trailer.

!Of course, she neglects to mention her own descent into glassy-eyedness with respect to "the one"...)

Her contempt for Clinton seems pathological.
There is plenty to dislike - but for me, those things are issue-oriented. Dowd just seems nuts -- as if the mere mention of Hillary sets off an explosion of babble.

Should you be allowed to drive after a hit of pot? Or three? Is a hit the equivalent of a glass of wine or half a bottle of vodka? What about when a bit of pot is combined with a beer or two? How does a police officer judge the sobriety of a person who is high? Right now, people mostly just guess.

That's wildly irresponsible. According to a recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, people are now more likely to encounter drugged drivers on the highway than drunk drivers. Hawaii, New Jersey, and Arizona, among other states, have seen increased visits to hospital emergency rooms since approving the use of medical marijuana. Between 2007 and 2012, such visits grew by fifty per cent in Colorado, for example, and that was before the drug was fully legal. Since then, the increase has accelerated.

Interestingly, it is not that people are smoking more, or even that more people are getting high, but that the potency has increased immensely.

SNIP

The joints I rolled as a teen-ager contained about one per cent THC by weight. By the early nineteen-eighties, that figure was four per cent. It's now likely to be closer to twenty per cent. More than that, while occasional smoking seems relatively benign for most adults, there is clear evidence that exposure during adolescence can cause long-term changes in the brain.

SNIP

It is a strange country that is filled with people who object to life-saving vaccines, insist on labelling G.M.O.s, protest the use of pesticides that, when used correctly, have not been shown to cause harm, and yet seem ready to smoke whatever a dealer hands them to put in their pipes.

Since Hastert has long put himself in the public sphere, I have little concern here with lambasting him on a number of levels.  Am I missing something?  Ah yes, I missed the latest iteration that appears to involve the Duggars and their self-righteous Repub supporter, Huckabee.  What is wrong with these people?  It really is more than "the lady doeth protest too much."  Foremost in my mind is the lessor of Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" and the much later "father of political science" Harold Laswell with his observations about sex and the allure of political power.  The only real question I have about these examples at this point: Do these people really believe what they say when they preach about the evils of everyone else OR are they so far gone that they are oblivious to their far worse practices?

They want Apperson to wear a GPS monitor.  They claim he was released from a mental hospital 3 weeks before he tried to shoot George Zimmerman.  They say GZ had his tinted window rolled up at the time of the shooting.  

Individual A and defendant discussed past misconduct by defendant against Individual A that had occurred years earlier" and Hastert agreed to pay Individual A $3.5 million "in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A," the indictment says.

"People are also encouraged to utilize (their) second amendment right at this event just (in case) our first amendment comes under the much anticipated attack," the event's Facebook page says.

Bill Clinton agreed to appear at a gala for the model Petra Nemcova's charity in 2014 after Ms. Nemcova offered a $500,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation.

The implication, it seems to me, is that Clinton did something shady... even immoral.

Is it?
Was it?

It wasn't as if he pocketed the dough - and even so - he was appearing at a charity benefit to raise funds for someone who had raised funds, or donated funds, to his charity.

I am no fan of Bill's.
But this just reads as another attack - through the side door - on Candidate Clinton.

The U.S. economy shrank at an annualized pace of 0.7 percent in the first three months of the year, according to government data released Friday morning, a tumble for a recovering nation that until recently seemed poised for takeoff.

The contraction, the country's third in the aftermath of the Great Recession, provides a troubling picture of an economy that many figured would get a lift from cheap oil, rapid hiring and growing consumer confidence. Instead, consumers have proved cautious, and oil companies have frozen investment -- all while a nasty winter caused havoc for transportation and construction and a strong dollar widened the trade deficit.

The numbers released Friday were a revision of earlier figures that had shown GDP growing in the first quarter at 0.2 percent. Markets had since expected the downward revision, in large part because of recent data showing the trade deficit at a 6½-year high.

Ulbrict had begged the judge to "leave a light at the end of the tunnel" ahead of his sentence. "I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age," he wrote to Forrest this week. Prosecutors wrote Forrest a 16-page letter requesting the opposite: "[A] lengthy sentence, one substantially above the mandatory minimum is appropriate in this case."

The 31-year-old physics graduate and former boy scout was handed five sentences: one for 20 years, one for 15 years, one for five and two for life. All are to be served concurrently with no chance of parole.

Some people will probably say this is ironic without knowing George Zimmerman never used stand your ground during his trial.  

I hope to never experience the loss of my child.
------------
jb

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology - all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.