Why are Democrats throwing pies at opponents?

[Dinner]

Are you talking about the Delay case? I hadn't heard of any Rush Limbauh connection to the Delay case other then Limbaugh kept claiming it was all a leftist plot and didn't even speak about how Delay & the rest of the Republican leadership removed almost half of the Republicans on the ethics committee because they said they'd vote to start an investigation into Delay's illegal diversion of funds and his accepting illegal "gifts" (that's brides to everyone else) from Russian oil companies.

So are you talking about the Delay case (which we've all been discusing for pages) or are you attempting to change the subject to something different?

[Lancer]

Delay accepted "illigal brides from Russian oil companies"?!?!

[Dinner]

He got a free trip to Russia with his whole family and staff plus they put them all up in a very nice hotel and exclusive golf clubs and the works. It's illegal to accept such gifts, it has been for years, and everyone in Congress knows it especially the speaker of the house. He tried to cover it up but the dirty laundry came out and now Delay is in the death spiral of his political career.

There is also the issue that he was laundering millions and millions of dollars in order to avoid federal campaign finance laws. Since it is now illegal for special interests to give over a certain amount of "hard money" Delay arranged for them to give "soft money" to the RNC which then got laundered through several accounts and the exact same original amounts of hard money would end up in the accounts of various Republican candidates. I suspect this is the one he'll go to jail for.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oerdin
He got a free trip to Russia with his whole family and staff plus they put them all up in a very nice hotel and exclusive golf clubs and the works. It's illegal to accept such gifts, it has been for years, and everyone in Congress knows it especially the speaker of the house. He tried to cover it up but the dirty laundry came out and now Delay is in the death spiral of his political career.

There is also the issue that he was laundering millions and millions of dollars in order to avoid federal campaign finance laws. Since it is now illegal for special interests to give over a certain amount of "hard money" Delay arranged for them to give "soft money" to the RNC which then got laundered through several accounts and the exact same original amounts of hard money would end up in the accounts of various Republican candidates. I suspect this is the one he'll go to jail for.

Oerdin, on the Limbaugh thing, I just gave it as an example of a politically motivate witch hunt by a prosecutor.

I have asked for details about any criminal complaint filed against Delay, and have yet to receive an answer.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ned
Yeah, the man was a commie upset at her changing her position on supporting the NV war effort against her own country.

I suppose it won't surprise anyone that Ned is totally wrong yet again. CNN is reporting that the guy who spit on Jane Fonda was a Vietnam War vet who didn't like her anti-war position and her trips to North Vietnam.

I suppose in Ned's world he just had to be a commie or some type of evil leftist because in the Nedaverse rightists don't do things like this. In any event the spiting rightist has nothing to do with the Republican party just as the pie throwing guy doesn't have anything to do with the Democratic party. That won't stop Ned making "OMG! DEMOCRATS ARE ALL ATTACKING POOR ANN CAULTER!!!" threads but I atleast wanted to side with fairness.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ned
Oerdin, on the Limbaugh thing, I just gave it as an example of a politically motivate witch hunt by a prosecutor.

I have asked for details about any criminal complaint filed against Delay, and have yet to receive an answer.

As always the process to charge a sitting Congressman is a long one. The first step is to for the House Ethics Committee to do an investigation which Delay and the party leadership successfully bocked a month ago. The press got a hold of the details and now the Republican party is backing down.

NPR's Morning Edition had a special this morning in which the Republican & Democratic leadership have are negotiating on how to proceed. The Republicans are saying they'll allow the investigation to go forward but only if the rules are changed so that they can block any future investigations against their members. Democrats are saying they want the bipartisan 35 year old rules to be reinstated (Delay had them removed a month or two ago to stall his charges).

In the end the Republicans will back down because the press and the public are watching them and Republican members of the house are tripping over themselves to tell CNN how they want the old rules put back in place. As soon as that happens Delay is toast.

[Dinner]

Current and past scandals of Tom Delay are listed below. There is a whole lot of "gifts" which Tom has been collecting which he simply forgot (in his words) to declare as he legally was required to do. There value is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

-An investigation by the Justice Department showed that Tom DeLay accepted a trip financed by the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, breaking House rules that prohibit accepting travel expenses from "a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign principal."

-Tom DeLay claims that a 1997 trip to Moscow (where he met with the Russian Prime Minister) was arranged and paid for by a nonprofit public policy organization. But people who knew about the arrangements claim that the trip was actually arranged by lobbyists and funded by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that may have served as a front for Russian companies with ties to Russian security forces.

-Tom DeLay participated in a $70,000 expenses-paid trip to London and Scotland in 2000 that sources said was indirectly financed in part by an Indian tribe and gambling services company lobbying Congress.

-Tom DeLay invited donors to share a skybox with him at a Three Tenors concert, a skybox paid for by super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is currently under investigation by the Senate. Just two months after the concert, DeLay voted against gambling legislation that Abramoff was lobbying against. The skybox tickets were worth thousands of dollars, and DeLay never reported the gift.

Then there's the half million dollars he funneled to family members from his Political Action Commitee. Legally, you're supposed to declare such money given to family members even if your family members are working for you because it takes campaign donations and puts them directly into the pocket of your family members. Old Tom just forgot to mention it.

The current Grand Jury Investigation is coming from what is being called the "The TRMPAC Scandal" in the papers. In Texas it is illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns, however, Tom Delay found a way to funnel funds through the RNC to individual Republican law makers in Texas. That's why the state of Texas is now going after him.

Before Federal charges are filed for doing similiar type activities in Federal elections a house ethics committee investigation must be completed. Of course the Republican leadership is stone walling. Luckily, this will soon end as the rank and file members are melting away from Delay faster then rats on a sinking ship.

Knowing that he faced investigation for a growing pile of scandals, Tom DeLay and the GOP House leadership purged the Ethics Committee of Republicans -- including Chairman Joel Hefley (R-CO) -- who weren't willing to overlook charges against DeLay, replacing them with members loyal to the leadership. They then changed the Committee rules to make it more difficult to begin investigations. Democrats on the Committee have refused to take any action in protest until the rules are restored.

There is at least four times in the recent past where Tom Delay has been officially repremanded by the ethics committee for unethical behavior and or abuse of his ofice but those don't really matter to the current case. Soon Republicans won't be able to block the legal process any more and then Delay is finished.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I suppose it won't surprise anyone that Ned is totally wrong yet again. CNN is reporting that the guy who spit on Jane Fonda was a Vietnam War vet who didn't like her anti-war position and her trips to North Vietnam.

I suppose in Ned's world he just had to be a commie or some type of evil leftist because in the Nedaverse rightists don't do things like this. In any event the spiting rightist has nothing to do with the Republican party just as the pie throwing guy doesn't have anything to do with the Democratic party. That won't stop Ned making "OMG! DEMOCRATS ARE ALL ATTACKING POOR ANN CAULTER!!!" threads but I atleast wanted to side with fairness.

Oerdin, I think you failed to see the post where I indicated that this post of mine was a joke. You guys are really slow on the uptake these days.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Why are Democrats throwing pies at opponents?

Originally posted by Ned
Last year, they hit Nader, then tried to hit Coulter. When the Democrat assaulters were arrested, attacks stopped for awhile. But they quickly resumed several weeks ago when a fellow-Democrat prosecutor dropped charges. Since their, three conservative speekers have been assaulted.

What gives? Why are Democrats, or at least, some Democrats, behaving like communists and anarchists?

Here is Ann Coulter's column on this.

Well, then there's always spittin' tobacky juice on Hanoi Jane.

I'd bet that ol' boy waren't a Democrat.

I'd still buy him a drink any time.

[Ned]

Well, there does appear to be a lot of smoke.

BTW, do you believe people should have a right to fair trial before they are hanged?

[Ramo]

Oerdin, do you think local prosecutors could be politically motivated in filing charges against prominent politicians of the other party? Is this even a remote possibility?

Ronnie Earle has prosecuted four times as many Democratic politicans as Republican politicians. There's absolutely no basis to say that his investigation is politically motivated. Absolutely none.

Ramo, I have heard of some goings-on in Texas but have not seen the details, either here or on TV. What are the allegations in the criminal complaint?

The big things - what he'll be indicted for - are for laundering some corporate contributions through the RNC to funnel to Texas campaigns, and using other corporate contributions for non-adminstrative expenses. Both felonies according to Texas' already lax campaign finance laws.

[Ramo]

BTW, do you believe people should have a right to fair trial before they are hanged?

Yes. I also believe in not asking retarded questions.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
Well, there does appear to be a lot of smoke.

BTW, do you believe people should have a right to fair trial before they are hanged?

As Judge Roy Bean put it, every man's entitled to a fair trial and a fair hanging.

If it comes to a criminal trial, you can bet ol' DeLay will have lawyering out the wazoo, he ain't exactly a poor working stiff relying on a public defender.

When it comes to ethics questions, then elected politicians in a nationally prominent leadership role should be held to extremely high standards for any matters relevant to the conduct of their office, regardless of party.

[Ned]

Well, if he is actually indicted by a Grand Jury, I think he will step aside regardless of the rules. I think his party will insist.

However the heat coming from the Democrat side suggests that they want to get Delay regardless of the merits of the charges.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Given his past violations, he shouldn't even be in a leadership position, especially for a party that likes to harp on moral values. The current charges are just icing on an already large cake.