“I am fighting for the work of the lord.” –Tom DeLay
“He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am.– Tom DeLay
Former exterminator turned Republican House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay was nailed on multiple charges of scumbaggery.
After 19 hours of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women decided that Mr. DeLay was guilty of conspiring with two associates in 2002 to circumvent a state law against corporate contributions to political campaigns. He was convicted of one charge of money laundering and one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
As the verdict was read, Mr. DeLay, 63, sat stone-faced at the defense table. Then he rose, turned, smiled and hugged his wife and then his weeping daughter in the first row of spectators. He faces between 5 and 99 years in prison, though the judge may choose probation.
Prosecutors used a novel legal theory never before tried in Texas: They argued that Mr. DeLay and two of his 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.
DeLay remains defiant and pledges to fight on — just as he did in his very-gay debut in Dancing with the Stars.
A few minutes later, Mr. DeLay said outside the courtroom that he would appeal the decision. He called the prosecution a political vendetta by Democrats in the local district attorney’s office, and revenge for his role in orchestrating the 2003 redrawing of Congressional districts to elect more Republicans.
“This is an abuse of power,” he said. “It’s a miscarriage of justice. I still maintain my innocence. The criminalization of politics undermines our very system.”
Yep, it was the dog that organized the scheme. Or, the Democrats conspired with aliens because they don’t like his religious beliefs. Or, it is all one big George Soros plot. It appears DeLay will remain a creep to the bitter end, making lame excuses about how he was framed. DeLay has never been one for facts or evidence, so no matter how damning the testimony, the congenital liar will continue down this road.
Everyone in Washington had long known DeLay is a sleaze who shakes down corporations and K Street lobbyists, demanding that they support his right wing agenda. Now, the rest of the world will finally see the face of lies, distortions, and corruption behind the phony “Family Values” facade. DeLay likes to say he rules through his fundamentalist “worldview”. Well, I hope his “worldview” from his prison cell is a filthy brick wall.
Under Newt Gingrich the new Republican majority in 1994 promised to clean up morals and government corruption with its “Contract With America”. Well, they’ve done a fine job. Newt left the House after an affair with a younger woman. And DeLay may be headed to the hoosegow.
The question is, will the Red State suckers continue to vote for a bogus conservative agenda, which is nothing more than a fraud? The Right Wing MO is to talk about morals with southern accents while picking the pockets of Middle Americans. Sixteen years after the “Republican Revolution” working class Americans have no money, and it is clear that the leaders they elected have no morals. The rise and fall of Tom DeLay is a cautionary tale of why placing hopes and dreams in the hands of politicians who say they are on God’s side is dangerous.
As for Delay? He’ll do just fine if he ends up in prison. There is always a need for exterminators in those rat infested hell holes. Tom DeLay once said, “America was created by God to spread the Gospel; to spread the word of Jesus Christ and to propagate Christianity.” Well, maybe he can team up with former Watergate felon Chuck Colson and become a poky preacher.
If I seem a little rough on DeLay, it is because I have a visceral disgust with the man and his politics. This cynical reprobate represents everything wrong with Washington and the Republican Party. For instance, remember when DeLay tried to intervene on the Terri Schaivo feeding tube case? Here is what I wrote at that time:
Scandal-laden House Majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, slithered out from beneath his slippery stone to lead the congressional charge to undermine his much-beloved states rights and pass an emergency law that switched jurisdiction of the case to the federal courts. DeLay even accused Michael Schiavo and the judges who decided this case of committing “an act of barbarism”.
So, it was uncommonly grotesque and unusually sickening to read in the Los Angeles Times that DeLay did not object when his family pulled the plug on his comatose father, Charles DeLay, 16 years ago. According to the medical report, “extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated”, and his bedside chart said, “Do not resuscitate.”
Obviously, this political charade was never about rescuing Terri, but a desperate effort to deflect the stench of scandal from the corpse of corruption that surrounds DeLay, and a cynical effort to resuscitate his comatose moral authority as a conservative leader.
In terms of his stand on gay issues? DeLay voted in favor of banning adoptions by gay people in the District of Columbia. He voted for a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting marriage equality. The Hammer even signed a petition in 2010 against the legalization of same-sex marriage in Mexico City. (Maybe his time would have been better spent bolstering his criminal defense)
Delay was way ahead of most right wingers, smearing Obama as early as Aug. 2008, by calling him a “Marxist” and “socialist” . DeLay also said that legalized abortion is responsible for the immigration problem in America.
Speaking in Arlington, Va., at the recent national convention of College Republicans – a 250,000-member organization that promotes GOP policies and candidates – the Texas Republican said: “I contend [abortion] affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn’t need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it.”
Tom DeLay, a convicted man of convictions. Happy Thanksgiving.
