DeLay Indicted

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Would it be wrong for me to hope he resists arrest?

 

I have to say I'm enjoying watching DeLay get put through the basic routine processes. I still hope he gets a fair trial, and I'd like to see as much of the evidence as possible before judging the man. I think he's a scumbag, but that's not a crime - still, a dose of humility would probably do an apparatchik like DeLay some good.

Fingerprinted and his mug shot taken - just like a common criminal - from what I've seen, heard and read, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

EDIT: Oh, this is a surprise. [/sarcasm]

At the risk of being in exceptionally poor taste and disrespectful to Texas police...

I didn't think that police shot wealthy people resisting arrest, AMaster; just the poor, the mentally ill, armed felons and ex-cons, and people who aren't white.

 

I'm sorry, I can't hear you all. My ears have become numb from all my laughter.

Hope he gets to serve a long term, maximum penalty for his crime, and that Bubba in the next cell have brought vaseline.

 

Here's the DeLay arrest warrant

I like how they end it:" HEREIN FAIL NOT, but due return make hereof to this court as the law directs"

Someone could easily work this in a RP game

 

Death Rabbit, I urge you to look at what majority leaders DO. They routinely kill bills and decide what initiatives go forward. It is their job. So any of this "DeLay killed XYZ program because of ABC donations" is just hypothesizing and wholly irrelevant.

I disagree that DeLay trying to get the FAA to track people who were committing a felony was a bad idea.

And I do not have any problem with the Ethics Committee reprimanding him for the fund-raiser. They probably should have. But let us remember that it was for the APPEARANCE of impropriety.

He may very well have created the appearance, but that is a far cry from actually being corrupt, which is what you and others are charging.

He did not ask people to kiss his ass and toss him money. He refused to talk with them if they only hire Democrats. Big difference.

Actually, gerrymandering WAS invented by Democrats who wanted to ensure "majority minority" districts. And you're going to have to do your own investigating on K Street's demographics.

 

Uh, no. No it was not. I direct you toward the following.

from http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_036000_gerrymander.htm

 

Ah, but the problem there is that the then-Republican party is what eventually morphed into the modern day Democrat party. Jefferson and Lincoln are probably the two most famous "Republicans" who actually belonged to the party that is today's modern Democrat party.

EDIT: Spelling

[ October 26, 2005, 20:03: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Aldeth makes a good point. The Jeffersonians are often referred to as the Republican-Democratic party. And Jefferson is sometimes thought of as the founder of the Democratic party. But Jefferson's vision of the Democratic party, which is a term he would probably would not recognize, was a bit different from the modern Democratic party. But Abe Lincoln was a Republican, which is one reason why many in the South were Democrats until the civil rights movement changed that in the 1960s.

 

I wasn't refering to the party name, but rather the date; it's inconceivable that the redistricting was done to insure minority-majority districts (in the racial sense) when blacks weren't enfranchised.

The point being that it is in no way a recent development, and so saying "it's a democratic tactic" (or the reverse) is willfully ignorant at best. It's been around for ~200 years, for chrissake. It's like characterizing aerial bombardment of cities as a German tactic: it may have originated with them, but it sure as hell was not--and is not--exclusive to them.

 

@ St. James

I never said the problem was with him killing bills and deciding what does and doesn't go forward. Of course that's what he's supposed to DO. But his decisions are based solely on furthering the supremacy of the Republican party, not on representing the best interests of the people. You know, the third word in the title "House of Representatives?"

First - hypothesizing isn't necessary when the donations did indeed occur, and a direct correllation can be made between DeLay's received contributions and the agenda he pushed. Second - how exactly is the leader of the House of Representatives basing his lawmaking decisions solely on who scratches his back the best NOT relevant? Who would you rather have representing you - the guy who pushes the agenda based on what's best for his constituants, or the guy who pushes an agenda that heavily favors the power company who sent him on a fancy-schmancy golfing vacation? Sure other politicians from both sides have been doing exactly that for years. But that doesn't make it right, especially in DeLay's case, where a leadership position such as his denotes a certain amount of moral example given the power of the office. He's the LAST person in the Housr who should be pulling crap like this, yet you seem to think it's no biggy for DeLay.

Again - what exactly constitutes "unethical" to you? Evidently our definitions don't match up.

Speaking of someone needing to look into what majority leaders "DO"...or at least have the authority to do...

He does NOT have the authority to dispatch federal resources to achieve a political end - and as he, nor the Texas DPS, lacked the authority to conduct or even be involved in the manhunt, DeLay's actions were purely political in nature. Hence, his admonishment. And "felony" is pushing it, since none of the Texas Dems served a day in jail and are all still in office. The Texas government having the authority to round up and return members of the legislature who willfully prevent a quorum (an action that was cancelled by day 2 of the standoff) being on the same bar as murder and armed robbery is being a little dramatic, don't you think?

I'm still waiting for you to tell my why DeLay's redistricting plans - wholly unnecessary since the districts at the time were drawn out accurately based on the latest census, which already heavily favored Republicans in Texas anyway - were such an "ethical" thing for him to do. Never mind technically legal, as obviously he found a loophole to pull it off so soon after a census - I'm talking ethical.

Also - I noticed you didn't deny the fact that DeLay has the most admonishments in history for a Senate Majority leader. Is the ethics committee just being frivilous, or what?

A technicality, which neither makes him innocent nor repentant, now does it. He didn't exactly do much to prove the "appearance" was false, did he? And an "appearance" isn't exactly something I would think we should let slide, since "appearances" are quity easy to dispell in issues like this. That he was rebuked on the "appearance" of corruption merely means that no hard evidence was presented, and DeLay didn't sufficiently refute the charges. Hardly 'no big deal,' especially since Ethics Committee rebukes and admonishments aren't exactly handed out like candy.

First sentance: True, but a man in his position doesn't exactly "ask" for ass-kissing, now does he? For a guy who "works in Washington," I would have thought this would be obvious.

Second sentance: Again - how is refusing audience of any kind to people who hire Democrats, and threatening people and entities into staffing Republicans NOT an unethical thing for the leader of the House of Representatives (there's that word again..."representative") to be doing? By the way - it isn't that he refused audience to people who hired only Democrats. It was people who hired ANY. I don't consider that ethical in the least.

Yeah, I didn't think you would substanciate that. A good way to lose credibility in a debate is to tell the person challenging one of your assertions to "go look it up yourself." You said it, not me. Why should I prove it for you? A simple link would have sufficed. Oh well.

Wanna go for three?

[ October 26, 2005, 23:08: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

Gerrymandering is an integral part of a majority vote system. It therefore is likewise spread and does not depend in anyway on "parties". The advantage (or disadvantage) of a proportional system would be to reduce the importance of geometry compared to majority voting systems. Proportional systems were forwarded by mathemagicians precisely to minimize the importance of geometry. Also helpful would be to break with the many centuries old British tradition of letting the parliamentarian decide what shape and form his constiuency has.

There is a wonderful and instructive episode of Black Adder on that topic.

 

Iago,

If that's the way it works in Britain and other areas of Europe, then kudos to you. In the U.S., gerrymandering very much does depend on the parties. Of course, that's because we don't have a system of proportional representation, but rather winner-take-all representation.

 

Oops. No, I did not mean that parties have nothing to do with it. I just meant that has nothing to do with one party. It's always the party that's in power that will secure itself the advantage of geometry in a majority system. It's an integral part of the majority system. Well, that's actually the point I was making. And of course that the USA in many ways is just like a museum of the UK in the 18th century.

And obviously, the US is clinching to old British traditions with Gerrymandering through party lines. Like the British themselves, that included the tradition of the not ruling party intending to change the system and forgetting about it after having won the elections. As the way more democratic prortion system brings a sensible power reduction for the the ruling party. And a proportional system does not exclude gerrymandering completely. There still have to be anti-geometry precautions to be taken.

No, what baffles me is this phonetical coincidence -> Gerrymandering and the geometry of voting.

 

Ah yes, the single voter constituency of "Dunny-on-the-Wold"...