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Souls for Sale

By Brian Cook

House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay (R-Texas) is the most loathsome politician to be retched onto the national stage in recent memory. To call him a shit would be to slander feces, which, to its credit, is the natural by-product of a nutritive process. DeLay can claim no such distinction. The normally dormant House Ethics Committee recently hit DeLay… return to article

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    It only goes to prove the old saying:  “A good Republican will not only sell his own mother on the corner he will try to sell yours too!”

    United States Posted by magistre on Dec 4, 2004 at 2:41 PM

    Last I heard the republicans were considering changing THEIR rule.  Reguardless of if they have or are considering changing THEIR rule it is despicable.  I am a republican and Delay needs to step down, if he skirts around this that is unacceptable.  If you, as a party, are going to claim morality you need to act on it.

    United States Posted by giantsox on Dec 4, 2004 at 7:16 PM

    As the article says, they changed it on November 17th.  Many of the despicable representatives don’t even have the nuts to admit that they voted for it, since it was done in a voice vote.

    The rationale behind the move was that they were protecting Delay from possible prosecution by Travis County DA Ronnie Earle, who they say would be motivated by partisan politics.  Only problem with this argument is that in his tenure as DA Earle has prosecuted more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans for abuse of political power related crimes.  As usual, the Republicans won’t let facts get in the way of a good smear campaign.  Pathetic.

    United States Posted by Mattdog on Dec 5, 2004 at 9:34 AM

    Now this is the kind of article I respect, generally. It does indulge in some name-calling by “slandering feces”, which doesn’t impress me much, but by and large it’s a respectable piece. Doesn’t pretend to be “unbiased” (whatever that really means), but takes a real and unmistakable stand and, much more important, it backs itself with citations of evidence that can be checked and cross-checked, falsified or verified. It’s unfortunate that campaign finance isn’t a very sexy issue to the citizenry at large, unless of course there’s a massive scandal that can be reported by the networx. But keeping the campaign fundraising system on an ethical footing goes right to the heart of the legitimacy of our elections. Which makes the Dems failure to pursue authentic reform by settling the suit before trial as disgusting as DeLay’s shenanigans. I guess if one side is profitting by swimming in shit, the other side feels they must wade in as well. Just feeds the perception that it doesn’t matter which party you vote for, which benefits incumbents no matter how unsavory they are.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Dec 5, 2004 at 6:41 PM

    Do the Dems even HAVE a rule such as the one the Reps are bypassing?

    United States Posted by curious on Dec 6, 2004 at 8:26 AM

    Response to curious:

    The rule that the Republicans bypassed apply (or rather, once applied) to all House members, Democratic or Republican.

    United States Posted by Brian Cook on Dec 6, 2004 at 2:17 PM

    Brian - thank you for your response.

    United States Posted by curious on Dec 7, 2004 at 8:04 AM

    The real tragedy of the existence of Tom Delay is that Texas is home to a good portion of minorities who, thanks to the Exterminator, now have even less of a political voice.  He jerrymandered that state real Texas-style, so that damn near every district has a Republican majority.  Poor sweet, stupid Texans - they’re paving their own road to feudalism. 
    They make good brisket though.  And perhaps they always will.

    Italy Posted by rocco on Dec 10, 2004 at 4:16 AM
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