Vox Sentences: The Denny Hastert scandal gets much more disturbing

Misconduct of the past

Hastert gives an interview to FOX News during the final day of the Republican National Convention on August 30, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

• Federal law enforcement sources tell the Los Angeles Times that former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) paid hush money to a man he'd sexually abused decades prior.

  [LA Times / Richard Serrano and Timothy Phelps]

• A New York Times report confirmed this: sources say the alleged victim, who'd been getting payments, told the FBI that Hastert had touched him inappropriately when Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois.

  [NYT / Michael Shear and Michael Schmidt]

• Hastert's indictment — for withdrawing the money from his bank accounts in ways that kept it from being reported to the government, and for lying to the FBI about that — alluded to "past misconduct" but didn't spell out what it was.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• Reportedly, the indictment left out the sexual abuse after Hastert's lawyers had requested it do so.

  [BuzzFeed / John Stanton, Andrew Kacynski, Evan McMorris-Santoro, and Chris Geidner]

• A month ago, Hastert asked the Illinois House leadership to withdraw a proposal to make a $500,000 statue of him and install it at the state Capitol building.

  [Chicago Tribune / Monique Garcia]

• Hastert got his money from lobbying after serving as Speaker, but also from some lucrative real estate deals while in Congress.

  [Chicago Tribune / Mike Dorning, James Kimberly, and Ray Gibson]

• A source told BuzzFeed that the alleged victim in this case — "Individual A" — is believed by the FBI to be one of several, and charges regarding an "Individual B" were almost added to the indictment.

  [BuzzFeed / John Stanton, Andrew Kacynski, Evan McMorris-Santoro, and Chris Geidner]

Dirty Terrorist-ing: Havana Nights

Raúl Castro and Barack Obama shake hands at the Summit of the Americas. (AFP/Getty / Mandel Ngan)

• The US has officially removed Cuba from its "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list.

  [NYT / Julie Hirschfeld Davis]

• In December, as part of his big deal with Cuba, President Obama ordered Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately start reviewing Cuba's State Sponsor of Terrorism status.

  [State Department / Jeff Rathke]

• The review was completed April 8, and Kerry recommended Cuba lose the designation.

  [State Department / John Kerry]

• On April 14, Obama submitted a statutorily mandated report to Congress indicating that he planned to remove the designation.

  [White House / Barack Obama]

• The report stated that Cuba has not "provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months" and has "provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future."

  [Reuters / Matt Spetalnick and Roberta Rampton]

• Now, the 45-day Congressional notification period is up, and Cuba's officially off the list.

  [The Economist]

• The short version is that the Obama administration had the power to remove Cuba from the list without Congress, and it did so.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Now the only official State Sponsors of Terrorism are Iran, Syria, and Sudan.

  [Washington Post / Carol Morello]

• Not familiar with the Cuba deal? Check out this basic rundown of what's in it.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

Poor Blatter control

Prince Ali (left) and Sepp Blatter (right). (Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)

• Embattled FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been reelected to a fifth term.

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

• The only other candidate was Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, the brother of the King of Jordan and current FIFA vice president for Asia. He ran on a reformist, pro-transparency platform.

  [The Guardian / Julian Borger]

• While Prince Ali was backed by US Soccer, he got only 73 votes to Blatter's 133 in the first round of voting, out of 209 votes total.

  [NYT / Sam Borden]

• Blatter was just shy of the two-thirds majority he needed to win, and a second vote would have allowed victory with a simple majority, so Ali dropped out.

• Blatter was accused of buying votes when he first won the presidency in 1998.

  [AP / Graham Dunbar]

• Not familiar with how, exactly, FIFA is corrupt? Let us count the ways.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

Misc.

• It's not Uber's fault that the economy's terrible enough that people are willing to work for Uber.

  [Slate / Reihan Salam]

• Sentences Teen Corner: What are the teens up to now? Fake Instagram ("finstagram") accounts, that's what.

  [Medium / Eric Herber]

• Fondue is popular due to a 1930s scheme by a cartel of Swiss cheese manufacturers to boost cheese demand.

  [Now I Know / Dan Lewis]

• Will Lippincott explains how dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), a relatively novel form of psychotherapy, saved his life.

  [NYT / Will Lippincott]

• On April 25, 1965, more than fifty years ago, three Philadelphia teenagers began the first ever sit-in for gay rights.

  [History News Network / Marc Stein]

Verbatim

• "I won't ask you to be fine. Nobody's fine. Be better."

  [Popehat / Ken White]

• "Pastor caught having gay sex in van spent stolen church money on farmer dating website: police"

  [Raw Story / Tom Boggioni]

• "Little League and other youth sports leagues are terrible, and we should not be sad to see them go."

  [Slate / Justin Peters]

• "A racist gang came to my rescue. They called themselves the In Crowd. They were haoles and, their laughable gang name notwithstanding, they were impressively bad."

  [New Yorker / William Finnegan]

• "Opposition MPs Angry at PM for Having Cake."

  [Iceland Review / Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir]

Song of the Day

• REM, "Strange Currencies

  [YouTube]

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