Another Republican will be leaving the US House of Representives by the end of this year.  Dennis Hastert aka Jabba, former Speaker of the House, announced that he will be resigning.

His time as a Bush rubber stamp Speaker of the House was marked by controversies, incompetence, and corruption, including a questionable land deal which brought him $2 million, a 300% return on investment, from a $207 million appropriation bill he inserted for a highway near his property during a closed door Congressional session.

Hastert was also embroiled in the Mark Foley page scandal  He and his staff knew about Foley's behavior for months, if not years, and did nothing, a blatant dereliction of duty and ethical impropriety.

Jabba Hastert also endeared himself to New Orleans and its residents during the Katrina disaster when he told a Chicago newspaper that spending billions of dollars to help the city "didn't make sense to me."

Hastert was another personification of the Republican controlled Bush rubber stamp Congress whose only concerns were greed, their party, and loyalty to Georgie the Lesser.  Hastert is the poster boy for Congressional failure to govern and legislate with even a minimum of competence, but successful at lining their pockets and those of the wealthy few.  Not an ounce of integrity in the bunch.   Good riddance.

There will be a special election to fill Hastert's Illinois district seat.

Speaking of special elections, there will be a special election on December 11 to fill the open congressional seat held by the late Jo Ann Davis, Bush lap dog and rubber stamp in Virginia's 1st Congressional District.  The Republican candidate is Rob Wittman, who ran unopposed for re-election earlier this month to the Virginia legislature's House of Delegates. 

At the 1st District Democratic convention, the Dem delegates had a choice between Ted Hontz, a retired senior naval officer with an impressive resume who was pro women's reproductive health rights, withdrawal from Iraq ASAP, etc. and a Heath Schuler DINO, Phil Forgit, who is opposed to embryonic stem cell research, feels we need to drag out Iraq withdrawal for at least two years, and is personally against a woman's right to choose but will follow the law (wonder how he would vote if Congressional Repugs try to overturn the current law).  Mr. DINO won by a narrow margin.  He had previously run as a Republican lite DINO for an open state House of Delegates seat, spending quite a bit of money but losing to the Republican (who needs a Repug lite when you can have the real thing).

Scuttlebutt says that the chair and other members of the Democratic Party 1st District Committee, instead of remaining neutral, allied themselves with the  Democratic faction at the southern part of the barbell shaped district and its DINO candidate in a strategy to quash Democrats at the northern end of the district and their Dem candidate. 

They succeeded but not overwhelmingly.  This flawed, divisive strategy continues to be exacerbated by the pugnacious DINO nominee who persists in calling Democrats "we" and "they" to describe their geographic district locations, instead of a unified "we."

While the Virginia Democratic Committees in the district are putting on a cohesive front, many Dems on December 11 will be holding their noses as they mark their ballots.  Let's hope Illinois Democrats do better.