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Tom DeLay Indicted? Bill Frist under investigation?

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
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Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
Weren't there threads about this stuff?

Anyway Delay was a real star on the Sunday news shows.

Asked whether he would return to the GOP leadership, DeLay said, “Well, I hope so. I can do my job with or without the title. That doesn’t concern me.”
But that doesn't seem to be the opinion of other GOP members

But GOP Rep. David Dreier of California, the House Rules Committee chairman initially recommended to take over many of DeLay’s duties, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that DeLay “knows he’s not going to run things.”
And this....

“He’s lost his office. He’s lost his staff. And he’s now basically a rank-and-file member who has a lot of friends and will still have influence,” said Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican.

Shays acknowledged he has not been comfortable with DeLay as the No. 2 House GOP leader, citing “continual acts that border and go sometimes beyond the ethical edge. They may not be illegal, but he’s always pushing that ethical edge to the limit.”
and the Democrats love this apparently

Democrats said their party stands to gain if DeLay asserts himself in the Republican leadership and the GOP embraces him. “I hope they continue to let him go out and say just what he’s saying,” said Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi,
The question is can they do anything with it?
 
Tenchiro said:
The question should be, will the American people do anything about this whne these types are up for re-election?

I sure hope so but somwhow that trashbag always seem to bounce back.
He is the king of special interest/lobbyist groups $$$ which is amazing considering how much the current administration seems to be influenced by them.
I know all political parties get graft but and it irks me so but in all honesty the current republicans sure do seem to be caught up in it pretty deep.

For the sake of democracy the guy should be made an example.
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
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Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
Tenchiro said:
The question should be, will the American people do anything about this whne these types are up for re-election?
Sadly enough DeLay is probably safe unless they lock him up. Frist on the other hand might have a little more trouble as he has to deal with the entire state.
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
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Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
N8 said:
I wasn't aware he'd already been tried and convicted yet...
He hasn't. But it does cause problems for Republican leadership in both that DeLay has to at least temporarily step down and two the rank and file is not laying down him in the short term as he probably expected.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9558564/site/newsweek/

DeLay and Hastert had wanted Rep. David Dreier to step in as acting majority leader. Instead, the hard-charging Roy Blunt got the job. Members demanded full-scale elections sooner rather than later for a new permanent Leadership, and if DeLay doesn't escape his legal problem by January—hardly a certainty—that vote will occur and he won't be in the race.
The historical parallels are interesting as well.

The Republicans' power outage is real—and the historical irony is as vast as Texas. Beginning in the 1950s, the Democratic Party of Texans Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn built a congressional machine of unrivaled power. But starting in the '80s, led by a firebrand named Newt Gingrich, Republicans led a revolt from below in the name of smaller government and an ethically cleansed Congress. In 1989 Newt & Co. forced out Democratic Speaker Jim Wright—a Texan, too, who resigned over charges that he profited improperly from book sales—and five years later the GOP took control of the House after a Biblical 40 years in the wilderness. But it took the Republicans only 10 years to become yet another ruling party beset by charges of profligate spending, bloated government and corruption—a party led by two Texans, Bush and DeLay, who don't particularly care whether they are beloved outside their inner circle. To paraphrase David Mamet, the Republicans became what they beheld.
Couple all of that with Frist's troubles. And the currently unknown results of Fitzgeralds' report on the whole Plame leak fiasco. Shall I go on? There is more. And lots of it centers around Abramoff.
 

Slugman

Frankenbike
Apr 29, 2004
4,024
0
Miami, FL
N8 said:
I wasn't aware he'd already been tried and convicted yet...
LOL - sucha die hard... I'm sure you were willing to wait until the Clinton mess was figured out before passing judgement.

Unfortunately these guys are so well conected and the democrats are so weak that nothing will happen. They will get a slap on the writst... MAYBE.
 

ohio

The Fresno Kid
Nov 26, 2001
6,649
23
SF, CA
Slugman said:
LOL - sucha die hard... I'm sure you were willing to wait until the Clinton mess was figured out before passing judgement.
No with Clinton, it wasn't about the crime, it was about the LIE. We don't care about crimes, but lying to the American people is just wrong.

Thankfully, Delay and Frist have never lied to the American people.
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
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Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/03/delay.indictment/index.html

Money laundering.... excellent.

DeLay and two associates are now also charged with conspiring to illegally steer $190,000 in corporate donations to state legislative candidates in 2002 and to disguise its source by sending it through national Republican campaign committees.
DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said the new indictment came as a result of a motion he filed to dismiss the conspiracy charge brought Wednesday. DeGuerin argued that the state's conspiracy statute did not apply to the state election code.

"Faced with the fact that the indictment he returned against Mr. DeLay last week does not even state a crime, he went back before a grand jury -- who, by the way, was only empaneled today at noon -- and got this new indictment," he said.
This is interesting. Conspiracy doesn't apply to election code. I guess politics is one big conspiracy. The other part is that the second indictiment didn't take anytime at all. It seems the first took forever.

Nicknamed "The Hammer" during his tenure as GOP whip, DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee three times in 2004 over separate issues.
That would be the Republican controlled ethics committee.
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
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Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
The conspiracy charge got dropped. It was dropped because the crime alleged by the indictment was not extended to election code until a year after the incident.

However, the remaining indictments stand.
 

Reactor

Turbo Monkey
Apr 5, 2005
3,976
1
Chandler, AZ, USA
This is pretty much SSDD for the republicans. They have a great PR machine and somehow seem to get away with outrageous acts. Heck, I sometimes see their denials and bombastic PR spin before I see the actual story. The Democrats, on the other hand, really need to get their stuff in one sock, their relationship to the very conservative American press isn't the best. They don't seem to fully realize the power of the media. They frequently seem blindsided, their best speaker, Daschle, lost his local election. I think in the end they'll weasel out of the charges. The evidence I've seen so far looks pretty convincing, but they haven't defended themselves in court yet.

Looking to the future, I think Daschle probably the best Democratic candidate, McCain is probably the best Republican, and they are both better than what we have now. McCain isn't likely to get the type of support Bush got from the religious extremists .
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
Even with the calls of victory from the Delay camp, it is far from that. The conspiracy charge was going to be a reach. However, the money laundering case is more serious of the two carrying a much bigger penalty. Additionally it is a much easier case to prove.

Another interesting sidenote is that while the Senate is going to be back in session around the 18th of January, the House appears to be holding off until the 31st of January. This seems to be to allow the maximum amount of time for DeLay to resolve these issues so that he can reclaim is post. This is based on the fact that as soon as the House goes in session, there is going to be a HUGE push for a leadership election. There is also some belief that even if the court case is not resolved, DeLay may make a play to get his post back anyway. The rule that caused him to step down is an internal House GOP rule not an official House rule, so at anytime the GOP could change or modify the rule.