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I find the money laundering part the most interesting, given what I've learned this fall about FEC complaints, legal contribution limits, financial disclosure forms, etc...
Mr. Delay was initially charged with breaking campaign finance law, but prosecutors later switched strategies because it was impossible under the law at the time to accuse someone of conspiring to break campaign finance rules.
Instead, prosecutors used a novel legal theory never before tried in Texas: they argued Mr. DeLay and two of political operatives - John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - had violated the criminal money-laundering law. They were charged with conspiring to funnel $190,000 in corporate donations to state candidates through the Republican National Committee.
That's why we investigate who donates to our elected officials. We pay attention to who the big corporate campaign donors are.
In 2005, Abramoff's money, via Tom DeLay's ARMPAC , caused considerable stir. J. D. Hayworth, the Republican primarying McCain in Arizona kept his Abramoff money. Pressure exerted by NH Democrats forced Jeb Bradley to return his $15,000 from ARMPAC. Ron Paul came under fire in 2007 for refusing to return donations from Neo-Nazi Don Black, the creator of StormFront, a white nationalist website. Former Speaker of the NH House, Gene Chandler, got in big trouble for taking donations and not reporting them.
Even as oil devastates the seafood industry and the coast of Louisiana, Senator Mary Landrieu is calling for accelerated offshore oil drilling. Mary Landrieu is the top recipient in Congress of donations from BP.
A recent press release from the NHDP criticizes Kelly Ayotte for taking some $150K from Wall St. execs, including a billionaire hedge fund manager.
Given that we watch and we criticize - it was especially painful to learn that one of the sponsors of the recent NHDP 100 Club Dinner was Wal-Mart. As we all know, Wal-Mart has long been criticized for their shoddy business practices, including not paying overtime, not providing health insurance for employees, and paying so poorly that many employees are eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. They are anti-union. They are anti-women. Wal-Mart pharmacies do not stock the morning after pill. Wal-Mart engages in censorship. Books, movies, and CDs purchased at Wal-Mart may be censored for bad language. Wal-Mart is an evil empire in many, many respects.
I'm dismayed that the NHDP accepted money from Wal-Mart. Not only are their ethics non-existent, taking money from them will lead to speculation about what they got in return.
Divorces are never pretty to watch. Having laid waste to the country militarily, economically, and environmentally, the Rove-glued coalition of fundamentalists, free market radicals, cronies, criminals and warmongerers known previously as the Bush-Cheney Administration And Their Congressional Allies is cracking up bit by bit. And it is not a pretty sight.
Here's a former exterminator, and erstwhile "Hammer", on John "A Hundred Years or More in Baghdad" McCain:
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) lambasted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Thursday for "betraying" the conservative movement.
..."If McCain gets the nomination, I don't know what I'll do," DeLay said at the Capitol Hill Club, according to a source in the room. "I might have to sit this one out."
..."There's nothing redeeming about John McCain," DeLay told Fox News. "He appealed once again to independents...He's not going to go much further than New Hampshire."
I believe McCain is either tied or on top in South Carolina right now, but whatever. And you can't have one former Senate nightmare without the other:
"I served 12 years with him, six years...as one of the leaders of the Senate," former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told radio host Mark Levin on Jan. 10. "John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side."
Or to put it another way, this post is a long way of saying: Gooooo Huckabee! Goooooo Thompson! The Palmetto State cries out for you!
p.s. How's that indictment going, Tom?
Update: Tom DeLay says he "might have to sit this one out." But if convicted, does he become a felon and lose his right to vote anyway? And how many votes will the GOP lose this year in this manner?
What is up with all these high level Republican / White House departures? Some we know about, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Delay, Larry Craig and now we have the second highest ranking Republican, Senator Trent Lott, leaving five years before his seat was expected to be contested, causing the Katrina stricken state of Mississippi to spend over a million some odd dollars to hold a special election just to replace him. Why?
Look, if folks believe through their religion that the Anti-Christ will come in the form of a peacemaker, and that the US and Israel ought to bomb Iran to trigger the End Times, that's their Constitutional right.
But when a sitting US Senator, who dances at the needlepoint on the slimmest of all Democratic senate majorities, attends their gathering, it's freaking scary.
Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.
