Buh Bye Delay...

Mr. Engineer has been consistently "defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful" when addressing political figures he disfavors. No facts are ever presented and no position ever taken. That is being a troll.

 

In my mind this might be seen as abusive and it certainly is vulgar. Having been recently put in a position of having to make decisions based on the TOS and trying to keep in mind that this forum is supposed to be "lightly moderated" I have decided (for now) that if someone wants to call a political leader (or some other celebrity) a turd then I'll let that go. If those same sorts of terms begin to be directed at other members then they can expect to hear from me. Being a rookie Moderator I expect that my attitude might shift through time and I will take each situation as it occurs.
Jack

 

You mean I can't refer to that sack of well rotted compost as "Texan cow crud"?

How about if I specify FRESH Texan cow crud?

I spell relief "I-N-D-I-C-T-M-E-N-T"!

"I hear the handcuffs just SNAPPING on Tom"
"Felony, felony, first prison then some"
"Time on parole, he won't finish without"
"messing up, messing up, messing up, no doubt!"

(sorry, Tammy!)

 

I'm not calling on the moderators to take any action. I am calling out Mr. Engineer. Invective is not argument and it is past time for him to make some arguments when addressing political matters. And I'm cluing in Mr. DesElms as from where comes his thumping mania.

 

Ignore that last post; that's my evil twin Skippy!

Okay. The statute of limitations for conspiracy appears, under Article 12.01 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, to be three years.

The Grand Jury says DeLay conspired on or about September 13, 2002 so the limitation ran out about two weeks ago.

I will make a pure guess that the Congressman had some evidence that he wanted to have put before the Grand Jury, likely his own testimony. The prosecutor might've said, "Sorry Tom, but the time's runnin' out here. Can you git back to Texas right quick?" And DeLay's lawyer probably said something like, "Well, the Congressman can't leave Washington D.C. just now; he's got some important palm-greasing to do; can we put it off a couple of weeks?" And the prosecutor might've said something like, "Well, sure, but you'll have to waive the time limit by a couple of weeks." "Yeah, well, we'll do that if we have to, I guess."

 

Okay now....

I just watched Hardball on the whole Delay mess. First, I am a known Repub on this board. Despite this, I am not a big fan of DeLay. He is obnoxious and tends to start fires where they are not necessary. However, this bit of legal trouble is outright BS. The very same act they are trying to pin on him goes on in Illinois alll of the time. It is openly printed in the papers and no one ever gets indicted. Our beknighted senior senator, Dick Durbin, has done it and he's the minority whip in the Senate.

In short, DeLay encouraged the transfer of funds which could be used in a state election for funds which could be used in a federal campaign. It is a sleight of hand which is perfectly legal even if it is somewhat of a violation of the spirit of the law. When our current governor ran for governor as a congressman he transferred almost all of his congressional campaign funds to the state Democratic Central Committtee for use in federal campaigns around the state and received a like amount of state campaign money to use in his state campaign. It was openly reported in the papers and no one was charged. It works like this:

An elected federal official collects money under the laws applicable to his office. If he then runs for for state office in lets say Illinois he could use that money. However, since federal money is harder to collect in Illinois than state campaign money the state central committee wants to keep those funds in a federal account. To do so, they have the candidate "donate" the money to the state central committee's federal campaign fund. The candidate then opens a state campaign account. The central committee then writes him a check from the central committee's state campaign fund and the candidate uses this money in his/her state campaign. The committee uses the federal money elsewhere in a federal campaign for, lets say, the US Senate. The same thing happens in the opposite direction. A state senator runs for the US Senate and cannot use his state funds for his/her federal campaign. To get around this the central committee moves the money in the opposite direction. AND IT IS LEGAL!!!!!

What a bunch of crap....

 

Ah, music to my ears! I still remember when Delay and his buddies tried to change the ethics rules in anticipation of Delay's indictment. What a bunch of scum!


Abner

 

Now, you be quiet, Skippy! These good folks don't want to hear you crowing!

I think Congressman DeLay is charged with violating the Texas Election Code, a state law, by a Texas Grand Jury. Illinois law is irrelevant.

 

Scary day when Jimmy and I agree on anything, but the Republicans blew it on this one. They do not need a hard-line conservative going into mid-term elections next year. Coat-tails are going to be mighty short and showcasing a moderate (a la Dreier) would help their case (I think).

Also, should Delay be found guilty (and who knows), do they really want someone closely associated with him to be the majority leader?

One interesting fact is that the prosecutor in this case, although a Democrat, has tried many more Democrats than Republicans.



Tom Nixon

 

Perhaps my legal background and the fact that I'm occasionally a perfect ass makes me more thick-skinned and more prone to want to fire back and have a little vigorous joust over something rather than go tell the administrator (not that any of you are doing that!!!)

Mr. Engineer gets on my nerves sometimes, as does Rich Douglas, Bill Huffman, Carl, Gregg, Tom 57, Abner, etc. etc. etc. (if I've left anybody out, please forgive me). But I wouldn't want them to change for the world. I love them the way they are, they are a delight to joust with, get angry at, and then forgive and be forgiven by.

Long and short is that I don't see any serious problems here, I don't think Mr. Engineer is a troll, just a guy who says vigorous things in vigorous ways. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this forum back anyone into a corner that they couldn't get out of with some measure of grace and dignity. This is not that alt.ed.distance nonsense, we're a million miles away from it!

 

Politicians are public figures, so they're fair game for anything other than blatant libel or slander. If someone wants to call a politician a "slimeball", "scumbag", or something along those lines, that's an occupational hazard of holding elected office.

If someone were to accuse a politician of being a pedophile, for example, that post would be removed, and the poster admonished.

To the original point....I was listening to Jay Sekulow today about the indictment. No question that Sekulow is a conservative, but he's also a brilliant legal mind that has shown he's fair in the past. For example, while disagreeing with the Terri Schiavo court decisions on a personal level, he admitted that the courts had ruled according to existing law.

Anyway, Sekulow has studied the indictment, and he said he can't find a single instance of DeLay being directly accused of a crime. He also said that Texas has ridiculously lax standards for Grand Jury indictments, as do most states. As Robert Morgenthau once said, "I could get an indictment on a ham sandwich". Sekulow went on to say that if this is all the evidence the prosecution has, it will be laughed out of any court in the country.

Unless there is much more forthcoming evidence, I see this as a potential serious black-eye for the Democrats. As a general rule, Americans don't like to see innocent people dragged through the court system, and this seems to be shaping-up as a textbook case of malicious prosecution.

 

Illinois Law is irrelevent only in a statutory way. The facts are everybody does it and only a nutjob DA in Texas wants to make a big deal out of something that probably isn't illegal.

 

Could be why....

That could be why the Democrats have suddenly stopped talking about. That was something pointed out on Hardball last night. They know it is a crock and now they want to step aside so they aren't made to look ridiculous when this is tossed out of court. Plus, thay have probably all done the same thing themselves so it leaves them open to charges of hypocricy, not that most politicians have a problem with that.

 

Fair enough. But the fact remains, Congressman DeLay will stand trial and be convicted, or acquitted, exactly in a "statutory way".

Skippy is working on something set to "Hernando's Hideaway" that ends, "They GOT him, Tom DeLay, Ole!" but he says he'll save it for the guilty verdict.

 

What's going on with this evil twin thingie? Why have you gotten so playful and mischievous lately? You ain't cracking up, are you? It's a not-too-uncommon occupational hazard.

Just curious.

Not that this is your path--heaven forbid!--but I remember working with another attorney on a case years ago and going through the file to get myself up to speed. There had been a change of opposing counsel in the previous year. One of the documents I was reading referenced this, and it said something to the effect of: "As you know, the law firm of Morgan and Goldstien took over as counsel in the instant case when the previous counsel, Simon Shumacher, Esq., unfortunately took his life." (names changed)

Kind of sobering, rather cast a pallor upon the day.

 

New Charges

Delay is now receiving additional charges in Texas.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/us_congress

 

Prior to the first post, I read the indictment. Like Bruce, I thought it was a little weak. However, turnabout is always fair play. The impeachment of Clinton, orchestrated by the righties, was very weak at best. Civil perjury is rarely charged, and it is even rarer to receive anything more than a fine or other slap in the wrist. No other normal human being other than Ken Starr and the Republican leadership thought it even was close to meeting the burden of a "high crime or misdemeanor"

It is nice to see the man squirm though. Much like McCarthy, Delay has made it his profession to slam others with this ruthlessness. Let’s see if the shoe fits now. Will these new charges amount to much? I don't know - that is up to the Texas courts. Like Clinton's ethics slips, he will be remembered for this - that is certain.


oh - all politicians are slimedogs - some are just slimier than others. It is the nature of the beast.

 

EEEEEWWWWW! (Whistles airly)

Money laundering, hunh?

Well, there's money laundering and money laundering...I wonder what this is about...campaign finance or something worse?

Funny. If they finally charged DeLay with a crime that is and ought to be a crime, as opposed to a regulatory offense like campaign finance, my own attitude would probably shift.

Defense lawyer instinct, I guess.

 

Perjury is a felony in every jurisdiction I'm aware of. If a felony doesn't constitute a "high crime", then what exactly does?

Don't forget about Barbara Battalino.

 

Just because it is a felony, doesn't mean it will be charged as a felony. Possession with intent to sell is a serious felony -- but I can say that I have rarely seen a first time offender actually be charged with that (arrested and charged are two different beings)

A high crime is Treason (as in what Karl Rove may have committed) -- Or another high crime is misappropriation of public money (you know - diverting money to the Contras)

I am aware of the Heritage Foundation digging up one of the few people actually convicted of civil perjury.


Just as a jab

242 USC is also a felony. Alas, two PA cops got away with it.