Sunday, June 18, 2017

Sunday Globe Special: Hodgkinson’s Disease

He was.... a leftist!

"Before the gunfire in Virginia, a volatile home life in Illinois" by Julie Turkewitz New York Times  June 17, 2017

BELLEVILLE, Ill. —People learned last week who James T. Hodgkinson was: the seemingly deranged gunman who, fueled by leftist rage, opened fire on a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va.

Hodgkinson was carrying a list with the names of at least three Republican lawmakers and had pictures of the ballpark on his cellphone, law enforcement officials said Friday.

???????????????

In Belleville, a quaint little city where flags fly on Main Street and the movie theater marquee is set off in lights, Hodgkinson, 66, was known to some friends and neighbors as a volatile figure.

“Is it shocking?” asked Doug Knepper, whose son is married to one of Hodgkinson’s foster daughters. “No, because the man did not seem 100 percent stable to me.”

Believe it or not, Globe actually brought up the subject of mind control, and if scientists might have figured out how to make us more honest, they can start with government officials and the ma$$ media mouthpieces.

I suppose it is all in the presentation, 'er, interpretation of the beholder, but where do you go for help?

No one can truly know what motivates a man to drive halfway across the country, live out of his car — as Hodgkinson apparently did — and attempt a mass killing of members of Congress. 

Yeah, who knows about motivation? It's not like the pre$$ would want to dig. They just take the government handout and go with it. 

In the days since the shooting, much has been made of Hodgkinson’s strong political views — he was an ardent supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders’ bid for the 2016 presidential nomination, and he railed against President Trump and Republicans in Washington on his Facebook page and in letters to the editor of the local newspaper. But another aspect of his personality may have also presaged the shooting: his troubled home life.

He even wrote the papers, huh? What a waste of time is that.

When Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group, analyzed FBI data on mass shootings from 2009-2015, it found that 57 percent of the cases included a spouse, former spouse, or other family member among the victims — and that 16 percent of the attackers had previously been charged with domestic violence.

Was he a father?

There is extensive research on shooters who kill multiple victims, but none on those, like Hodgkinson, who only wound, experts say. Most mass killers “arguably suffered from some form of mental instability,” at least temporarily, the Congressional Research Service concluded in a 2015 report.

Like war criminal leaders, and think of this: Hodgkinson has not, as of yet, killed anyone. Let's hope Scalise's security detail is trustworthy.

Mass shooters are usually socially isolated, experts say, and channel their sense of grievance into a rage at a particular group of people. Some latch onto a political cause as a way of justifying their violence.

But for all his complaining about Republicans, he had little to do with Democratic politics here. “Never heard his name,’’ said Patty A. Sprague, the St. Clair County auditor, who has been in elective office for more than a decade. “We knew our volunteers, and he was not a part of it at all.”

A onetime high school wrestler who worked for years in construction and then ran his own home inspection business, Hodgkinson spent much of his adult life here in Belleville, a Southern Illinois community of just over 40,000 people not far from St. Louis.

In Illinois? 

UH-OH!!!

He lived with his wife of nearly 30 years, Suzanne, in the home on Rolling Hills Lane.

Cindi Clements, 59, who has known the Hodgkinsons for more than 20 years, said James Hodgkinson had long been “Billy Goat Gruff” and was known for his “abruptness.”

She said Hodgkinson’s political views had taken an “extreme, fanatic” turn in 2016; while “life moved on for other people,” she said, the election had “never ended for him.” 

That's not so odd. It's been that way for a lot of people, including the paper I purchase every day. I still don't think they have accepted it, and the elitist hate that spews forth form their paper everyday.... sigh.

In March, Hodgkinson abruptly left Belleville for Washington, telling friends he was going to the capital to demand tax reform.

Then he was allegedly living out of his car for three months? Must have stank!

His widow held a brief news conference Thursday outside their home, where she said she thought her husband had gone to Washington to “work on taxes.”

But she also suggested that his home life might have factored into his decision to leave..... 

So go shoot up the Congressional softball practice?

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Related(?):

Alleged sex abuse victim may testify at Hastert sentencing
Hastert lawyers ask judge to spare him jail time
Report finds 4 ‘credible’ sexual abuse allegations against Dennis Hastert

"Comedian Andy Richter recalls Dennis Hastert’s locker room chair" Associated Press  April 09, 2016

CHICAGO — Comedian Andy Richter says he remembers the chair facing the showers that Dennis Hastert placed in the boys’ locker room at the high school where Hastert coached wrestling before becoming an Illinois congressman.

Richter attended Yorkville High School in the 1980s. He tweeted about the chair Friday night after prosecutors mentioned it in a court filing in the former House speaker’s hush-money case.

‘‘I went to Yorkville HS ‘80-’84 & I remember this chair. Purportedly ‘to keep boys from fighting,’’’ Richter tweeted, referring to the chair, which prosecutors describe as similar to a ‘‘Lazyboy’’ in the court filing.

Richter, the sidekick on Conan O’Brien’s TV show, says he was ‘‘struck by how easy it was’’ for Hastert to do that. He added: ‘‘Nobody questioned it.’’

Prosecutors say Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to a man he sexually abused when the man was a 14-year-old wrestler on Hastert’s team. The court filing details sexual abuse allegations involving five former students at the suburban Chicago school during Hastert’s tenure there from 1965 to 1981.

Hastert pleaded guilty in October to breaking banking laws in connection to the payments.

The filing Friday night is the first time prosecutors have confirmed Hastert paid hush-money to conceal sex abuse. It chronicles a chain of deception that began with Hastert exploiting his position of trust as a teacher and coach and carried on years later to include lying to bank officials and making false claims of extortion to the FBI to conceal his wrongdoing.

Richter says he hadn’t thought about the chair in 30 years, but was reminded of it after seeing it mentioned in the court filing.

It's like most of the elite pedophile epidemic that is being exposed somewhat.

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Related:

"The judge in Dennis Hastert’s hush-money case signaled Wednesday that he will consider the former US House speaker’s lies to investigators that he was being extorted on a false claim of sexual abuse at his sentencing hearing. Judge Thomas M. Durkin made clear he is disturbed by prosecutors’ accounts that Hastert lied to federal agents."

"Details of sex abuse could mean prison time for Hastert" by Michael Tarm Associated Press  April 26, 2016

CHICAGO — When Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty last year to breaking banking laws, sentencing guidelines suggested that the former House speaker would probably serve no more than six months in prison for making illegal withdrawals to conceal a dark secret from his past.

But after prosecutors lifted a veil of secrecy from the case, the judge made comments that suggested he might impose a longer sentence on Wednesday, potentially putting Hastert behind bars for several years, because of allegations that he molested at least four student athletes when he was a high school wrestling coach.

Word that one of the accusers will speak at the sentencing hearing is sure to turn up the pressure on Judge Thomas M. Durkin to reject defense calls for probation and send the 74-year-old Republican to prison.

If that happens, Hastert, who was second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president and who left office as the nation’s longest-serving GOP speaker, would become one of the highest ranking politicians in American history ever to be incarcerated.

Prosecutors have said they would have preferred to charge Hastert with a sex crime. But because the statute of limitations on sexual abuse ran out decades ago, they settled for banking violations. Hastert admitted evading financial regulations when he withdrew money to pay another victim to ensure his silence.

Prosecutors have made it clear they intend to treat the sex-abuse allegations, not the banking violations, as their focus at sentencing. Court practices generally allow discussion of a defendant’s personal history and character, especially if some bad behavior is related to the crime.

Punishments available to the judge range from probation and home confinement to a maximum of five years in prison. Until this month, it was hard to gauge what Durkin might be thinking. But at a recent hearing, he let his dismay show for the first time.

The judge repeatedly singled out how Hastert in a 2015 interview with federal agents sought to deflect blame by falsely accusing Individual A of extorting him with a bogus sex-abuse claim. That lie happened last year, the judge said. And unlike the abuse allegations, it was not distant history.

The lie would factor into the sentencing calculations, Durkin added: ‘‘That’s a big one.’’

Hastert’s plea deal set the sentencing range from zero to six months in prison. But guidelines in federal court are just that: guides. Judges have huge discretion, so Durkin could impose a prison term of more than a year or two.

The defense asked for probation, citing Hastert’s failing health and the price they say he’s already paid in public humiliation. Prosecutors did not recommend a specific sentence, but their reference to sexual abuse on nearly every page of their 26-page sentencing memo strongly suggests they want notable prison time for Hastert.

Not enough.

Prosecutors did not confirm until recently that Hastert’s case had anything to do with sexual abuse. When they finally did confirm it, they went into graphic detail, including how Hastert would sit in a recliner chair in the locker room with a direct view of the showers. 

These kind of things make me squeamish, sorry.

It was Individual D, the one who plans to testify Wednesday, who provided the detail about the chair. Individual D was 17 when Hastert abused him in a locker room after offering the teen a massage, according to court documents filed by the government. Hastert, it said, ‘‘removed Individual D’s pants and told Individual D to turn over on his back. Defendant then performed a sexual act on Individual D.’’

The victims, prosecutors said, were between 14 and 17. Hastert was in his 20s and 30s. The abuse occurred in a motel and the locker room at Yorkville High School outside Chicago and included ‘‘touching of minors’ groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor,’’ prosecutors said. 


I kind of do need to know that, yeah.

In court documents, the accusers, all males, are designated only by letters A through D. Only Stephan Reinboldt, who died in 1995, is named. His sister, Jolene Burdge, is the only other person scheduled to make a victim statement. She spoke previously to media organizations, saying that her brother told her about Hastert’s conduct before his death.

It isn’t clear whether Hastert will make a statement at the sentencing or whether any statement would include an apology.

Hastert has not personally apologized in any forum. In arguing for probation, defense attorneys described Hastert as apologetic, saying their client ‘‘is deeply sorry and apologizes for his misconduct that occurred decades ago and the resulting harm he caused to others.’’

Conspicuously absent was any mention of sexual abuse.

His lawyers may have risked raising the judge’s ire in another related filing, in which they questioned whether what Hastert did to Individual A — including touching his genitals during a massage — legally constituted sexual abuse.

Prosecutors hit back at that defense notion in their sentencing memo: ‘‘There is no ambiguity; defendant sexually abused Individual A.’’

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"‘Serial child molester’ Dennis Hastert sentenced to 15 months in prison" by Monica Davey New York Times  April 27, 2016

CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, once among this nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced to 15 months in prison Wednesday for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago.

In a hearing that was by turns harrowing and revelatory, Hastert publicly admitted for the first time to abusing his athletes, was confronted in emotional addresses by one of the former wrestlers and the sister of another, and faced a long, scathing rebuke from the judge.

Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved small-town wrestling coach in Illinois to speaker of the House in Washington, sat in a wheelchair as a judge announced he was rejecting pleas for probation from Hastert’s lawyers, as well as prosecutors’ endorsement of a shorter prison stay.

Maybe not. He was eminently blackmailable. These scum are groomed for the position, and it starts with the schooling.

While the sentencing hearing was, technically, about a violation of banking rules and regulations, the proceedings focused squarely on the underlying reason for Hastert’s puzzling bank withdrawals — his abuse of young wrestlers who had viewed him as a role model.

“The defendant is a serial child molester,” Judge Thomas M. Durkin of US District Court said in a tough rebuke of the former speaker before issuing his sentence. The judge added, “Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”

Hastert was not charged with sexual abuse because statutes of limitation for acts in the 1960s and ’70s have run out; the judge noted pointedly that punishment for such a conviction would have been far worse.

Illegally structuring bank transactions to keep such abuse secret — the felony count to which Hastert pleaded guilty — carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Hastert, whose date to report to prison has yet to be set, was ordered to pay $250,000 in fines, never to contact his victims and to receive sex-offender treatment.

The “public shaming” is enough. 

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Also see:

"Former US House speaker Dennis Hastert sexually abused at least four boys when he coached wrestling at an Illinois high school."

He's ‘‘a serial child molester,’’ and what did he do in the intervening years to rise so high?

No wonder Hodgkinson is haunted by history.

Good thing Hastert never became a senator.

RelatedFifth victim dies in shooting spree

Some shootings get more coverage than others.

UPDATE: 

Dennis Hastert released from prison in Minnesota

Hastert’s health has been an issue. He sat in a wheelchair during his sentencing and used a walker to deliver a statement.

I'm not feeling the least bit of sympathy for him.

Related:

“This is not the time for St. Paul’s to be sitting back on its laurels talking about what a wonderful community it has.”

Rector Hirschfeld (OMG) is so grossly out of touch that it shows you that the elite pedophilia has been the standard operating procedure for centuries, just like the Catholics. It was considered normal, and the whole ruling class is rank in this s***. It's not only the way they are controlled and blackmailed, it is also a symptom of pedophiles being in control of the levers of power. That is why the confusing issue of gender identity is being raised so prominently. The predator's goal is to legalize such behavior, as they will proudly point out its vast history regarding the long ago empires of the Greeks and Romans.

What does a world do when those running it are the sick and psychopathic ones?