The "HAMMER" is coming down!

[Gimpy]

This is just the FIRST OF MANY!

I hate to say 'I TOLD YOU SO'!---------Naw----------I really don't!

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By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep.Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post. A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a "partisan fanatic." (Yea, right!---Ha, Ha, Ha!---Gimp)


DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

In Austin, Texas, Earle told reporters, "Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public."

DeLay is the first House leader to be indicted while in office in at least a century, according to congressional historians.

"I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today," DeLay said in a statement.

Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forces DeLay to step down under House Republican rules.

At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the president still considers DeLay ? a fellow Texan ? a friend and an effective leader in Congress. (no surprise there......crooks of a feather will 'flock' together, right?---Gimp)

"Congressman DeLay is a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people," McClellan said. "I think the president's view is that we need to let the legal process work."

The indictment puts the Republicans ? who control the White House, Senate and House ? on the defensive .

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also is fending off question of ethical improprieties. Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family.

Less than a week ago, a former White House official was arrested in the investigation of Jack Abramoff, a high-powered lobbyist and fundraiser.

The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to "knowingly make a political contribution" in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions. It alleged that DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.

The PAC then wrote a $190,000 check to an arm of the Republican National Committee and provided the committee a document with the names of Texas State House candidates and the amounts they were supposed to received in donations.

The indictment included a copy of the check.


The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term.

It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.
Democrats have kept up a crescendo of criticism of DeLay's ethics, citing three times last year that the House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his conduct.

"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people, " said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

[SuperScout]

Before you go wetting your pants in glee, I'll wager any amount you can't afford to lose that the indictment gets thrown out before it ever gets to a jury, just like little Ronnie Earle's attempt to set up Kay Bailey Hutchinson, US Senator from Texas. Interestingly enough, the very same attorney that absolutely wiped the floor with Little Ronnie is now working for a repeat performance, this time for Rep. Tom DeLay.

And you can stop with the slander of the President. You do a disservice to yourself, and any values you might fleetingly hold on to.

Not that it will happen, but when the indictment is canned by the sitting judge, I expect an apology to Tom DeLay and everybody else that you have offended.

[Andy]

Scout beat me to it but I'll give you 2 to 1 odds that Delay isn't convicted. Way I figure, the case will come crashing down in plenty of time before the '06 elections. Then elephants then get to call the jackass' all sorts of bad names with a ring of truth to it.

No Delay isn't even real news. Bill Frist, he's news. He wanted to be our president in '08. This stock sale and all the members of his family bailing out of the stock just before it crapped the bed, and they call it a blind trust???

I think he just lost the nomination. Course didn't Mrs. Clinton do better than could be expected in the market?

Stay healthy,
Andy

[BLUEHAWK]

Word is that the indictment itself is very "thin" on showing that DeLay was directly involved in whatever happened... so, methinks this is not going to get much of anywhere.

[SuperScout]

And little Ronnie is actually having a film (it can't be called a documentary, as "documentary" by definition must be true) made of his entire episode involving Tom DeLay. What's so amazing about this sick abuse of power is that Earle has gone through 5, count 'em, 5 (that's all of the fingers on a normal person's hand, Rio Linda dwellers) grand juries until he found one he could convince to pony up an indictment. This "documentary" crew has been at this task for 2 YEARS, and I wonder what taxpayer entity has borne the burden of this cost.

Earle has also committed extortion (he must have gotten his lessons from that other hero of the liberals, Jesse Jackson) on some his former criminal opponents. In exchange for dropping charges, Earle has extorted contributions for some of his favorite causes, leading one to ask, if it was worthy of an indictment in the first place, how can the crime be absolved by a contribution?

[exlrrp]

posted in error

[exlrrp]

Ive looked over the facts of this case presented so far and I got a fat C Note that says that Delay goes down. whats intersting to me is the Swiftboating of people who are intersted in showing off Delay's corruption. This is no defense and doesn't address the facts at all but its all the Republicans got.
Hello? Delay was admonished 3 times by the REPUBLICAN congress for ethics violation just this year alone.. He's been the trarget of ethics charges for years and unlike his lies about them being proved false, most of them stuck. This is a man who likes to play fast and loose with the rules.
But whats really shows his complete corruption is the ongoing Abramoff scandal.
Tom Delay had no problem taking expensive junkets at lobbyists expense when he was involved inlegislation that concerned their special intersts. He played a shell game with election money that got him and his corrupt associates indicted.
HE and his pal Abramoff, Republican bagman, and their pal Safavian, a former lobbying partner of Abramoff who, incredibly was put uin chatge of all government spending, liked their little golf trips to Scotland where the greensfees alone were $2000. Delay has said that he "didn't know where the money came to pay for this." (ROTFLMAO)Safavian has been arrested for his corruption and he's as joined at the hip to abramoff as Abramoff is to Delay. This is going farther for Delay also.
This while Delay, in typical Republican fashion was selling out workers in the Marianas for corporate profits and setting up Abranoff to extort money from his Indian Gambling clients.
Whats intersting is how these extortionate thugs worked. They had a little game where if their pet special intersts didn't pay up, they had their pet congressman, like Delay and Blunt, create legislation to screw them until they did.
And Delay's name is the biggest part of this.
Pop up the popcorn Gimp and kick back in the Barcalounger We're going to have a good time watching this stoory unfold and its high time it did. With a little luck and an honest jury we may see some justice finally
Stay good
James

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by Andy Scout beat me to it but I'll give you 2 to 1 odds that Delay isn't convicted. Way I figure, the case will come crashing down in plenty of time before the '06 elections. Then elephants then get to call the jackass' all sorts of bad names with a ring of truth to it.

No Delay isn't even real news. Bill Frist, he's news. He wanted to be our president in '08. This stock sale and all the members of his family bailing out of the stock just before it crapped the bed, and they call it a blind trust???

I think he just lost the nomination. Course didn't Mrs. Clinton do better than could be expected in the market?

Stay healthy,
Andy

Andy
Youre on compadre, 1 C note against 2 says he's convicted. Fred can hold the stakes

Ms Clinton did OK in the market but it was small potatoes copmpered with Bush's investmant in the TX Rangers tha ntted him over 15 million$$$ for a few hundred thousands of investment (which he borrowed). It could never have been done without him which, as it concerned the use of Emionient Domain made him the posterboy for grabbing away private land for corporate profit.
Frists miiraculous profit at the expense of many kicks back to Bush's selling of Harken stock right before it crashed. He didn't file the papers timely either but no problem--the commission appointed by his dad let him off.
Obviously Frist violated the real meaning of the Blind trust by selling stock out of the fund (profiting by $2--$4 million) but I'm not sure if this is illegal. Its the indsider trading aspect that will do the damage and it sounds a lot like Martha Stewarts problems.
Seeing these characters kicked out or punished for their ethical violations is too much to ask. But this will take Frist out of the Presideential race and without him who do they got?
(answer Bill Bennett)
stay good
james

[BLUEHAWK]

Originally posted by exlrrp
...1 C note against 2 says he's convicted.

James -

I'm not being combative about this (not that it would matter if I were to be), but, I am curious why you are SO sure of his conviction prior to trial?

I am not a huge "fan" of the Tom DeLays and John Breaux's of the American political world... but history is fairly full of people like that landing on their feet in spite of really horrible accusations (and truths, some of the time.)

[SuperScout]

While some may see this as a trivial correction, it truly is enormous by any standard: eminent domain was the legal device used by the City of Arlington for the acquisition of the land upon which the Texas Rangers ballpark was built. The City of Arlington owns the land, not the Rangers. So contrary to the lie posted by James, GWB and his partners didn't use the ED route.

And where is it a crime to make a profit, even with borrowed money? Only a whining liberal would find fault with that good fortune.

Let's take a good look at this bogus indictment:
There is a lot to be said about Ronnie Earle's indictment yesterday of Tom DeLay--and, by the way, a corrupt DA like Earle can procure an indictment of pretty much anyone he chooses, so I refuse to give Earle cover by attributing the indictment to the grand jury--but the most interesting question to me is, why did he do it?

To help the Democratic Party, obviously; but I mean the question more specifically. Earle has been conducting this "investigation" for three years. He indicted three of DeLay's aides a year ago. If he thought he could get away with indicting DeLay, why didn't he do it then, shortly before the 2004 election? [Could it possibly be that Earle is a gutless wonder?]

Earle has said more than once, including as recently as two weeks ago, that DeLay was not a target of his "investigation." [Answer: Earle lied. NO surprise here.] So, what changed? One possibility is that, after three years, Earle suddenly found some evidence against DeLay. That's possible, I suppose, but certainly unlikely. Based on the indictment, which we linked to yesterday, it doesn't appear that Earle has any evidence at all. In all probability, the DeLay indictment will be thrown out at some point, and Earle will look like a fool, just as he did when he indicted Kay Hutchison shortly after she was elected to the Senate.

A year ago, and apparently as recently as two weeks ago, Earle did not choose to take that risk. So--once again--what changed? My guess, and it's only a guess, is that it has to do with the impending battle over the Supreme Court. It appears that the Democrats have decided, barring the extremely unlikely possibility that President Bush nominates a Democrat, to filibuster the next nominee, whoever he or she may be. Such a move would be unprecedented in American history, and carries considerable political risk.

I believe that the Democrats think they can get away with a filibuster because they have the Republicans on the run--nothing but bad news from Iraq (untrue, but that's the impression you get from the media), the fiasco of Hurricane Katrina (also untrue, as we're learning), Bush's sagging poll numbers, etc. In order to lay the groundwork for their filibuster, the Democrats are doing everything they can to create an anti-Republican frenzy in the press. My guess is that the DeLay indictment is part of that effort. [No suprose again, since they can't come up with anythinkg positive.]

It would be interesting to subpoena Ronnie Earle's telephone records and see what Democratic Senators or representatives of the Democratic National Committee he has been talking to over the past couple of weeks.

UPDATE: Some goofball on a left-wing site attacked this post earlier today, claiming that I was criticizing Earle's indictment for not reciting the evidence against DeLay. I doubt that this guy bothered to read yesterday's post, which I referred to above, where I said:

You can read the indictment here. It is pathetic. The only time it mentions DeLay's name is when it alleges that he agreed to toll the statute of limitations! The indictment contains no suggestion of what he supposedly did that was illegal.
This lefty apparently is ignorant of the elementary difference between alleging what the defendant did that was illegal, which is normally done, and pleading the evidence you will offer to prove that he did it, which is normally not done. My criticism of Earle's indictment was not that he didn't plead his evidence, but that he didn't specify what, exactly, DeLay supposedly did. (The indictment does, in contrast, recite specific acts that were allegedly performed by the other defendants.)

This is a complaint that DeLay has repeatedly made about the indictment. Article 21.11 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure says, in part:

An indictment shall be deemed sufficient which charges the commission of the offense in ordinary and concise language in such a manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is meant, and with that degree of certainty that will give the defendant notice of the particular offense with which he is charged...
I assume that the indictment will be deemed barely sufficient to survive a motion for dismissal, but the fact that Earle has been unable or unwilling to specify what, exactly, DeLay did that was illegal, both in his indictment and when pressed for more information in his press conference, is one of a number of factors that, taken together, suggest to me that Earle has little or no evidence that DeLay did anything illegal.

Could I be wrong? Sure. That's why I called it a "guess." Time will tell whether Earle really has anything substantial to work with, or whether this indictment is just another attempt to grab headlines, like his indictment of Kay Hutchison.