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)
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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)
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The US has officially removed Cuba from its "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list.
[NYT / Julie Hirschfeld Davis]
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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]
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The review was completed April 8, and Kerry recommended Cuba lose the designation.
[State Department / John Kerry]
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On April 14, Obama submitted a statutorily mandated report to Congress indicating that he planned to remove the designation.
[White House / Barack Obama]
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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]
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Now, the 45-day Congressional notification period is up, and Cuba's officially off the list.
[The Economist]
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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]
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Now the only official State Sponsors of Terrorism are Iran, Syria, and Sudan.
[Washington Post / Carol Morello]
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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)
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Embattled FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been reelected to a fifth term.
[Vox / Joseph Stromberg]
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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]
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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]
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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.
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Blatter was accused of buying votes when he first won the presidency in 1998.
[AP / Graham Dunbar]
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Not familiar with how, exactly, FIFA is corrupt? Let us count the ways.
[Vox / Libby Nelson]
Misc.
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It's not Uber's fault that the economy's terrible enough that people are willing to work for Uber.
[Slate / Reihan Salam]
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Sentences Teen Corner: What are the teens up to now? Fake Instagram ("finstagram") accounts, that's what.
[Medium / Eric Herber]
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Fondue is popular due to a 1930s scheme by a cartel of Swiss cheese manufacturers to boost cheese demand.
[Now I Know / Dan Lewis]
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Will Lippincott explains how dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), a relatively novel form of psychotherapy, saved his life.
[NYT / Will Lippincott]
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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
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"I won't ask you to be fine. Nobody's fine. Be better."
[Popehat / Ken White]
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"Pastor caught having gay sex in van spent stolen church money on farmer dating website: police"
[Raw Story / Tom Boggioni]
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"Little League and other youth sports leagues are terrible, and we should not be sad to see them go."
[Slate / Justin Peters]
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"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]
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"Opposition MPs Angry at PM for Having Cake."
[Iceland Review / Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir]
Song of the Day
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REM, "Strange Currencies
[YouTube]
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- Vox Sentences: On Iran, a resolute House
- Vox Sentences: The Denny Hastert scandal gets much more disturbing
- Vox Sentences: What was former House speaker Dennis Hastert's "past misconduct"?
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