Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead! DeLay not to run in '06... no thanks to Senate Dems...
Hooray!
Ding-Dong, the Wicked Witch of Sugarland, Tom DeLay, is dead!
DeLay, who went from "Hot Tub Tom" in his early days to the stern, holier-than-though moralizing "Hammer" of late, has announced that he will not run in 2006, effectively ending his reign of iron-fisted leadership in the House (from whence he got the nickname, "Hammer", as in "he would smash the knees of any Republicans who didn't align with the latest GOP dictate in the House...")
Unfortunately, VERY LITTLE of Tom DeLay's political demise has from any efforts of the Democratic Leadership. Well, possibly Rep. Conyers, Rep. Waxman, and other senior Democrats in the House minority-party leadership have had something to do with putting some "heat" on DeLay... after all, DeLay literally sicked HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on Texas State Democratic legislators, who had fled Texas to a hotel in New Mexico in an effort to prevent a Texas statehouse quorum that would allow DeLay's fellow Republicans to ram through a new Texas redistricting plan only two years after the previous redistricting had been enacted. This is but only one example of DeLay's brutal, sledge-hammer tactics that flirted with and crossed the line of good taste, if not abject criminality.
What Right did Texas Republicans, under overall supervision from Tom DeLay, have a right to call homeland security, and FORCE Texas legislator's to attend the brutal Republican redistricting plan??
answer- NONE AT ALL. This was a clearly PARTISAN use - MISUSE - of law enforcement and Homeland Security powers.
And what did the Senate Democratic "leadership" - the most visible, the most vocal, the most powerful Democrats with the broadest national recognition - do to HIGHLIGHT DeLay's borderline CRIMINAL MISUSE of power and authority in a clearly PARTISAN fashion...
answer- Again, the Senate Democratic "leadership" went back to their Georgetown cocktail circuit, doing NEXT TO NOTHING to publicize DeLay's egregious misuse of power.
CAN ANYONE IMAGINE Democrats SICKING HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on absent Republican state legislators???
How about Democrats failure to comment on Clown Antonin Scalia, the "BORGIA Justice", who recently made a contemptous "f***-yourself" gesture to the press and public while he was still in church?
WHERE is the Democratic leadership OUTRAGE at a Supreme Court Justice's unseemly behaviour?
(While a Cardinal in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, Cardinal Borgia had aides hand him loaded rifles in his Vatican apartmen, as he shot down prisoners brought before this balcony. "The Borgia Justice", Antonin Scalia, is a confirmed proponent of the "Divine Infallibility" of the executive and no lawyer, no court, no appeal holding of "war on terra" prisoners on no more than the executive's "infallible" judgement. Scalia, like his "no conflict of interest here" hunting buddy Vice President Dick Cheney and Cardinal Borgia before him, would probably consider shooting bound and captive prisoners to be "good sport.")
DeLay, Scalia, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Cunningham, Abramoff, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.. it is hard to keep up with the Republican litany of rogues and callous villains, and their agenda of abject GREED and CORRUPTION.
And even as the last vestiges of an independent US federal government continue prosecutions of DeLay, Libby, DeLay aides (aka "Abramoff conspirators") and other Republican scoundrels, we can all rest assured of one constant: The Lieberman/Kerry/Biden/Bayh/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party will CONTINUE to CEDE the "MORAL HIGH GROUND" to the pompous, morality-thumping Republican Party and their horrible "Moral Values" [NOT!} agenda...
DeLay Announces Resignation From House
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/delay;_ylt=ApFdVI_e2bZzt9EbJSw8D4Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday he will resign from Congress in the face of a tough re-election race, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.
"I have no fear whatsoever about any investigation into me or my personal or professional activities," DeLay said in a statement to constituents. At the same time, he said, "I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign."
He said the voters of his Houston-area district "deserve a campaign about the vital national issues that they care most about ... and not a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me."
DeLay relinquished the post as House majority leader last fall after his indictment in Texas as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal use of funds for state legislative races. He decided in January against trying to get the leadership post back as an election-year corruption scandal staggered Republicans and emboldened minority Democrats.
Last week, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.
Neither Rudy, Abramoff nor anyone else connected with the investigation has publicly accused DeLay of breaking the law, but Rudy confessed that he had taken actions while working in the majority leader's office that were illegal. DeLay has consistently denied any wrongdoing.....
[Upon arriving in Congress] DeLay quickly established himself as a forceful presence — earning a nickname as "The Hammer" — and he easily became majority leader when the spot opened up.
DeLay was the driving force behind President Clinton's impeachment in 1999, weeks after Republicans lost seats at the polls in a campaign in which they tried to make an issue of Clinton's personal behavior.
His trademark aggressiveness helped trigger his downfall, when he led a drive to redraw Texas' congressional district boundaries to increase the number of seats in GOP hands.
The gambit succeeded, but DeLay was soon caught up in an investigation involving the use of corporate funds in the campaigns of legislators who had participated in the redistricting.
______________________________________________________
April 4, 2006, 12:31AM
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3769131.html
Ethics issues have swirled around Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, since he was elected House majority leader in 2002. A timeline of events:
• 1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the House of Representatives.
• 1994: Elected majority whip.
• July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries, but fails, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
• November 2002: Elected majority leader without opposition.
• September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates — Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold — in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections.
• September-October 2004: The House ethics committee chastises DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
• January 2005: House Republicans reverse a rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
• March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
• April 2005: House Republicans scrap contro-
versial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
• September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and is forced to step aside as majority leader.
• October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in and is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents.
• November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.
• December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year.
• January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to reclaim his post as House majority leader.
• March 29, 2006: Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan are sentenced in Miami to nearly six years in prison but are allowed to remain free while they help a congressional corruption investigation in Washington.
• April 3, 2006: Republican officials say DeLay will resign his seat and won't seek re-election to Congress.
Ding-Dong, the Wicked Witch of Sugarland, Tom DeLay, is dead!
DeLay, who went from "Hot Tub Tom" in his early days to the stern, holier-than-though moralizing "Hammer" of late, has announced that he will not run in 2006, effectively ending his reign of iron-fisted leadership in the House (from whence he got the nickname, "Hammer", as in "he would smash the knees of any Republicans who didn't align with the latest GOP dictate in the House...")
Unfortunately, VERY LITTLE of Tom DeLay's political demise has from any efforts of the Democratic Leadership. Well, possibly Rep. Conyers, Rep. Waxman, and other senior Democrats in the House minority-party leadership have had something to do with putting some "heat" on DeLay... after all, DeLay literally sicked HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on Texas State Democratic legislators, who had fled Texas to a hotel in New Mexico in an effort to prevent a Texas statehouse quorum that would allow DeLay's fellow Republicans to ram through a new Texas redistricting plan only two years after the previous redistricting had been enacted. This is but only one example of DeLay's brutal, sledge-hammer tactics that flirted with and crossed the line of good taste, if not abject criminality.
What Right did Texas Republicans, under overall supervision from Tom DeLay, have a right to call homeland security, and FORCE Texas legislator's to attend the brutal Republican redistricting plan??
answer- NONE AT ALL. This was a clearly PARTISAN use - MISUSE - of law enforcement and Homeland Security powers.
And what did the Senate Democratic "leadership" - the most visible, the most vocal, the most powerful Democrats with the broadest national recognition - do to HIGHLIGHT DeLay's borderline CRIMINAL MISUSE of power and authority in a clearly PARTISAN fashion...
answer- Again, the Senate Democratic "leadership" went back to their Georgetown cocktail circuit, doing NEXT TO NOTHING to publicize DeLay's egregious misuse of power.
CAN ANYONE IMAGINE Democrats SICKING HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on absent Republican state legislators???
How about Democrats failure to comment on Clown Antonin Scalia, the "BORGIA Justice", who recently made a contemptous "f***-yourself" gesture to the press and public while he was still in church?
WHERE is the Democratic leadership OUTRAGE at a Supreme Court Justice's unseemly behaviour?
(While a Cardinal in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, Cardinal Borgia had aides hand him loaded rifles in his Vatican apartmen, as he shot down prisoners brought before this balcony. "The Borgia Justice", Antonin Scalia, is a confirmed proponent of the "Divine Infallibility" of the executive and no lawyer, no court, no appeal holding of "war on terra" prisoners on no more than the executive's "infallible" judgement. Scalia, like his "no conflict of interest here" hunting buddy Vice President Dick Cheney and Cardinal Borgia before him, would probably consider shooting bound and captive prisoners to be "good sport.")
DeLay, Scalia, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Cunningham, Abramoff, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.. it is hard to keep up with the Republican litany of rogues and callous villains, and their agenda of abject GREED and CORRUPTION.
And even as the last vestiges of an independent US federal government continue prosecutions of DeLay, Libby, DeLay aides (aka "Abramoff conspirators") and other Republican scoundrels, we can all rest assured of one constant: The Lieberman/Kerry/Biden/Bayh/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party will CONTINUE to CEDE the "MORAL HIGH GROUND" to the pompous, morality-thumping Republican Party and their horrible "Moral Values" [NOT!} agenda...
DeLay Announces Resignation From House
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/delay;_ylt=ApFdVI_e2bZzt9EbJSw8D4Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday he will resign from Congress in the face of a tough re-election race, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.
"I have no fear whatsoever about any investigation into me or my personal or professional activities," DeLay said in a statement to constituents. At the same time, he said, "I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign."
He said the voters of his Houston-area district "deserve a campaign about the vital national issues that they care most about ... and not a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me."
DeLay relinquished the post as House majority leader last fall after his indictment in Texas as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal use of funds for state legislative races. He decided in January against trying to get the leadership post back as an election-year corruption scandal staggered Republicans and emboldened minority Democrats.
Last week, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.
Neither Rudy, Abramoff nor anyone else connected with the investigation has publicly accused DeLay of breaking the law, but Rudy confessed that he had taken actions while working in the majority leader's office that were illegal. DeLay has consistently denied any wrongdoing.....
[Upon arriving in Congress] DeLay quickly established himself as a forceful presence — earning a nickname as "The Hammer" — and he easily became majority leader when the spot opened up.
DeLay was the driving force behind President Clinton's impeachment in 1999, weeks after Republicans lost seats at the polls in a campaign in which they tried to make an issue of Clinton's personal behavior.
His trademark aggressiveness helped trigger his downfall, when he led a drive to redraw Texas' congressional district boundaries to increase the number of seats in GOP hands.
The gambit succeeded, but DeLay was soon caught up in an investigation involving the use of corporate funds in the campaigns of legislators who had participated in the redistricting.
______________________________________________________
April 4, 2006, 12:31AM
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3769131.html
Ethics issues have swirled around Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, since he was elected House majority leader in 2002. A timeline of events:
• 1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the House of Representatives.
• 1994: Elected majority whip.
• July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries, but fails, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
• November 2002: Elected majority leader without opposition.
• September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates — Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold — in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections.
• September-October 2004: The House ethics committee chastises DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
• January 2005: House Republicans reverse a rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
• March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
• April 2005: House Republicans scrap contro-
versial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
• September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and is forced to step aside as majority leader.
• October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in and is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents.
• November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.
• December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year.
• January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to reclaim his post as House majority leader.
• March 29, 2006: Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan are sentenced in Miami to nearly six years in prison but are allowed to remain free while they help a congressional corruption investigation in Washington.
• April 3, 2006: Republican officials say DeLay will resign his seat and won't seek re-election to Congress.
posted by verifi at 10:21 AM
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