Bye Bye Tom DeLay

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

...it's been horrible knowing you...

From the Washington Post:

"The Senate Finance Committee yesterday opened an investigation into allegations that lobbyist Jack Abramoff used nonprofit organizations to pay for a variety of improper activities, including overseas trips for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and another Republican lawmaker..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41850-2005Mar16.html

[Spider]

I wouldnt put much stock into this , Delay will find away to fire them , like they did the guy on the Ethics panel .......

[Rascal]

Remember that guy from Bond Golden eye that thought he was invincible...I'm thinking Delay might be that guy. So far he is invincible but when he does go down it's going to be ugly...and this isn't quite ugly enough to do that.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

This latest investigation is just the tip of the iceberg and one of many.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The Hooverization of Bush

Poor Herbert Hoover, the round-faced Stanford-educated wonderboy of the 1920s boom, who got elected president in 1928 on the strength of his performance as an economic management wizard, was corn-holed by the 1929 stock market crash and humiliated by several years of depression that followed it. Hoover's reputation never recovered, and he lived a long life -- another three decades -- under a cloud of ignominy.

A similar, though probably much worse, fate now awaits George W. Bush. The Great Depression, however, was milder than what Bush (and America) now faces. When Franklin Roosevelt came on board in 1933, he remarked that we had "nothing to fear but fear itself." This now-hoary phrase was much more precise and astute when first uttered than it seems after seven decades of recitation. The Great Depression was indeed a mystifying event because, as Roosevelt further observed, it happened in a society that was so fundamentally wealthy -- suffering "want amidst plenty," as FDR put it. We had barely begun pumping our stupendous oil endowment. We had productive farmland in abundance (even with the dust bowl happening) and plenty of food. We had loads of manpower, oodles of mineral resources, fabulous new industries like radio, motion pictures, cars, the world's most dynamic cities -- you get the picture. And yet the nation was on the ropes in 1933.

The Great Depression was a crisis of credit, capital formation, and markets, not of fundamental resources. It was a crisis of the abstract markers of real wealth, not the wealth itself. It was also a symptom of the diminishing returns of industrial hypergrowth, a kind of economic hormonal disturbance. It produced strange, unanticipated consequences. Hypertrophy in manufacturing led to saturated mass markets. The industrialization of farming led first to over-production of commodities and then to the dust bowl (thanks to that novelty, the Ford tractor). The system seized up. Money (credit) was scarce to an extreme. Farmers went broke. Factory workers were laid off. Essentially, it was intermission in the great industrial meta-drama. Everybody went out for a smoke.

After the convulsion of Word War Two, we went back to confidently marshalling our resources with a vengence. We took all that oil, all the mineral wealth, the raw land, the timber, and other riches and directed it into the dubious-but-profitable project of building a suburban utopia. We're now in the final act of the industrial pageant, a few minutes to curtain. The Long Emergency that we're about to enter as the world passes the all-time oil production peak will be about the depletion and scarcity of things we used to have in plentitude: energy, electricity, food, water, minerals, with a new crisis of money and credit like a cherry on top.

Herbert Hoover was vilified for doing nothing about the depression that followed the stock market crash. When we look back on the years of George W. Bush we will marvel at his failure to lead, especially his failure to inform the public that our habits of daily life would have to change, that we could not continue to burn twenty million barrels of oil a day, and spend money we hadn't earned; that we desperately had to reform our suburban land development habits, that the WalMarts and other predatory corporations had to be restrained in their systematic destruction of local economies, that our railroads needed to be rebuilt, that our borders needed to be defended, that our local small farmers needed to be supported, that our industries needed to be re-scaled and retained here, that corporate chiseling had to be policed, that finance had to be qualitatively different than a craps game in some casino.

The Hooverization of George W. Bush has begun. Only it will go much worse for Bush. His fall could be so hard, swift and awful that he may not be allowed to finish his second term. That's how stunned the public and even their entrenched oligarchical elites will be as the economy tanks and our national life begins to unravel. The Republican majority will go down with him, including such arrant villians as Tom Delay and the hosts of corporate CEO chiselers who sold out their workers and their country.

They can pray all they want. It won't help.

- James Howard Kunstler

[watermock]

You don't know crap. Hoover was hated because he got out of the stock market before he crashed. It's amusing how you blame Bush for Herbert Hoover, who was a great man actually. He was just too supply sided when the times called for dumping the gold standard to free up money.

LABS, I have never seen such fear mongering in my life. Europe doesn't have any trees left, why not bitch at them for once. Fact is, we have new growth all over the country.

"The Hooverization of George W. Bush has begun. Only it will go much worse for Bush. His fall could be so hard, swift and awful that he may not be allowed to finish his second term.'

Jesus Christ. He makes an asserton followed by a qualification. LABS has fallen so far that he seems to think Bush is Hoover and will not be allowed to finish his second term.

How amusing. God your an idiot.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Plug-pulling hypocrite: In 1988, Tom DeLay let his comatose father die

Family of the lawmaker involved in the Schiavo case decided in '88 to let his comatose father die.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,5710023.story

CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.

Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/www.democrats.org/images/banners/delay_scandals.jpg

Meet Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the man Republicans have chosen as their Majority Leader in the House of Representatives.

Tom DeLay is at the center of a bewildering array of investigations into corruption, abuse of power, and ethics violations.

As the courts and committees investigate DeLay's misdeeds and hand down indictments, keeping track of all the scandals can be a full-time job. So we thought it would helpful to offer folks this quick and easy guide.

The Westar Scandal

In 2002, executives at Kansas energy company Westar wrote a memo outlining how they could purchase a "seat at the table" with $56,500 in contributions to political committees associated with Tom DeLay and the GOP. DeLay was later admonished by the House Ethics Committee for creating the appearance of impropriety.

The House Medicare Vote Bribery Scandal

Tom DeLay and the Republican leadership kept open the vote for the Medicare bill for three hours -- long past the 15 minutes specified in House procedures -- in order to pressure Republicans to vote for the bill. Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) said GOP leaders offered "bribes and special deals," leading to an investigation by the Ethics Committee, which admonished DeLay.

The Texas Redistricting Scandal

When DeLay and his fellow Republicans were redrawing the Congressional districts in Texas to push Democrats out of the House, he used the Federal Aviation Administration to try and track a plane containing Democratic state legislators. The House Ethics Committee investigated DeLay's actions and once again admonished him.

The K Street Scandal

Tom DeLay has pushed lobbying firms to deny jobs to Democrats, and hire only Republicans, resulting in another Ethics Committee admonishment for inappropriately pushing a lobbying firm to hire a former GOP congressman. DeLay has pressured GOP lobbyists to make contributions to Republican candidates and the RNC.

The TRMPAC Scandal

In Texas, it's illegal for corporations to make donations to fund political campaigns. So Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee (TRMPAC) took $190,000 in corporate contributions and funneled them to the RNC, which then donated exactly $190,000 to TRMPAC-supported candidates. DeLay and TRMPAC are currently under investigation by a grand jury.

The Travel Scandal

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."

The Ethics Committee Scandal

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.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

A Second DeLay Scandal Story! First Washington Post, Now New York Times! DeLay Wife & Daughter Reportedly Received More Than $500k From PAC and Campaign. He Is Toast.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/politics/06delay.html?ex=1270440000&en=7e2ad081118890cd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

Washington Post Reports That DeLay Took Russia Trip Paid For By Shadowy Lobbyists. Stick A Fork In That Corrupt Congressman. He's Done.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html