DeLay says he won't step down

[seemslikeadream]

One day after being admonished by the House ethics committee, Delay accused Democrats of running a 'smear camapign.'
By Evan Vucci, AP

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The second-most-powerful Republican in the House, Tom DeLay of Texas, rejected calls Thursday from Democrats and watchdog groups that he step down as majority leader after the House ethics committee admonished him for abusing his power.

DeLay, a 10-term House veteran, said he remains focused on fighting terrorism and preventing another 9/11. "By the Democrats' actions today, it is clear they are focused on something else entirely: a smear campaign," he said.

The war of words all but ended the unwritten, seven-year ethics truce between Democrats and Republicans in the House. In harsh language, Democrats demanded that Republicans remove DeLay if he refused to step down.

"Republicans must answer — do they want an ethically unfit person to be their majority leader, or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

more
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/legislative/2004-10-07-delay_x.htm

[Pale_Rider]

1. Prime example of ...

... the pot calling the kettle black!


http://www.goenglish.com/ThePotCallingTheKettleBlack.asp

[WMliberal]

2. that isn't news.

it'd be news if he DID step down. Or if the Ethics committee did something more than say "you're a bad boy Tommy"

[Lady Effingbroke]

3. I think Morrison has a good chance of winning against DeLay.

He (Morrison) spoke at my school yesterday, and I think he will be a great Congressman if the quality of the speech he gave is any indication. There are at least twice as many Morrison signs as DeLay signs, at least around my neighborhood.
There is hope!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Is it a SMEAR if one's ethics really DO suck?

[FlemingsGhost]

5. So Tom's counting on the BushCo."family" protection, huh?

Not always a safe bet, Bugman. Ask Trent Lott ...

[anarchy1999]

6. He can say what he will, we the people of this nation can demand it.

Remember Newt. It is something like the call "Remember the Alamo".

DELAY, WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT! YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AND YOU DON'T GET TO PLAY ANYMORE. PERIOD!

If this doesn't fire everyone up to ring the phones off the walls in the morning, I don't think there is anything to save us on November the 2nd. They will tell us then it is too close to call, we're at war and so then and thereforth GW stays for 4 more years.

CALL THE COMMITTEE AND CALL YOUR REPS. Your reps talk to the members of the committee, don't you know?

[vetwife]

18. Lordie..I don't know who to call..Zell and Chambliss won't help !

We need to get him out of there ! HE committed crimes. Abuse of power !

[anarchy1999]

7. HOW MANY TIMES CAN I BEG FOR PEOPLE TO MAKE CALLS?

I spoke with a staff person in Byrd's office on Monday and she said the best thing we all can do to be effective is to INUNDATE the offices of our said reps with phone calls and handwritten letters. Due to the lack of time, phone calls are best. Ask for the name of who you are speaking with and tell that person you want a response from your representative. (Didn't get me very far with Kay Bailey and John Cornyn, but at least I made my voice heard).

GO FOR IT, MAKE THE CALLS, DELAY HAS COMMITTED CRIMES. Go to google and look up Lou Dubose. The book he authored and the articles over the last couple of weeks. Delay is toast, it is just quite simply up to us to make sure.

Hastert, stand behind this man and I promise you will be next.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and I've been scorned for far too long by the people who pretend to represent us.

[Zhade]

30. Thread bookmarked. I will call tomorrow. Do you have the 800 number?

I fucking HATE DeLay, and want him to go down so hard it breaks a rib or two.

[SoCalDem]

8. So did Trent Lott

:evilgrin:

[anarchy1999]

9. Lou Dubose talks about it, I was shocked. What the hell is an

ETHICS TRUCE? WTF???

We'll all agree to break laws and not say anything?

AN ETHICS TRUCE! Just let it roll through your mind over and over. An ETHICS TRUCE! F U each and every one of you reps in Congress that ever said okay, we declare an "ethics truce". Is that like crying or saying "UNCLE"? How stupid are we, how gullible are we and why are we letting "them" get away with this bull shit. Call it what it is. Plain and simple BS, Period.

ETHICS TRUCE, My Ass!

on edit, sorry for the rant, I take nothing back, it's an "ethics truce", don't you know.

[Fridays Child]

10. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

[anarchy1999]

11. Beyond boggle, I am discombobulated. I see no reason here and I

do not know why more DU'ers are not getting behind this. There are many of us here that have been posting every day, apparently to no avail. Is there some reason we sit down and play along with their "ETHICS TRUCE". WHY?

[vetwife]

12. And you think Bush will if elected out? I don't think so !

Same tactic different crook !

[anarchy1999]

13. You lost me? I'm confused.

We're always on the same side. I truly don't understand.

[vetwife]

16. Still on the same side...I should have made it more clear...

I feel as we have discussed, Delay is a crook and unethical and everything we hate and doesn't plan on stepping out of his unreal fascist world. Well, when Kerry gets elected and I believe he will, I think Bush won't go either. I really don't. I think the Bunker Cheney has is like a hole in the wall the old cowboys used. They will have to be drug out of there. Think about it. War crimes? No SS protection (Bush opted out of that) and he is already saying what he is proposing for 2006 like the election has already crowned him. I think Bush has no more plans of leaving than Delay does.
sorry for any confusion. Same tactics,, different crook. None of them are planning on leaving. We will have to make them !

[anarchy1999]

20. Oouch, dear, I was getting ready to go to bed peacefully. Damn.

You do have a way with words. Now I'll probably be up all night and I can't afford that.

Thanks and good luck to us all tomorrow. We are going to need it throughout this weekend and the weeks to come. I can't sleep, how's about you?

[vetwife]

21. Nope..I started a thread on that subject. I am a bit terrified !

Have not been sleeping at all.

[anarchy1999]

23. Who to call: VetWife, Share this with everyone.

And yes, call your congress critters, do what Byrd's office told me to do. Speak to them about your concerns, demand they hold DeLay accountable and ask who you are speaking with, then tell them you want a response from said representative. I did it with mine, shook them up a bit to be certain. I was told one thing by Senator Byrd's office and another by Senator Cornyn's office. My Senator Cornyn's office told me the only way I could or would get a response was if I sent them a letter, directly opposed to what Senator Byrd's office had told me.

Go figure.

But I do know the calls are making a difference. The more they get from us out here the more emboldened they are to stand up on our behalf. Remember, they work for us and they do need to be reminded of that just every once in a while. It can shake a staffer or two up.


Call Committee Chairman Joel Hefley and tell him to hold Tom DeLay accountable, 202-225-4422

Paid for by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

http://www.tomdelayethicsprobe.org /

Tell Congress to Call for an Outside Counsel and Investigate DeLay

What will it take for the Ethics Committee to investigate the allegations swarming around Majority Leader Tom DeLay?


DeLay's offer to support Nick Smith's son's candidacy in return for a vote on the Medicare bill is nothing less than bribery - a federal crime. Ethics Committee's Response? Admonishment.

DeLay is found to be illegally shaking down K Street lobbyists. Ethics Committee's Response? Admonishment.

Internal Enron memos show that DeLay pressed executives for $100,000, illegally slated for redistricting Texas. Ethics Committee's Response? Silence.

A 32-count indictment is handed down against cronies of DeLay PACs. Ethics Committee's Response? Silence.

Former DeLay employee uses access to the Majority Leader to bilk Indian tribes out of millions of dollars. Ethics Committee's Response? Silence.

Rep. Chris Bell files an ethics complaint complete with mountains of evidence charging DeLay with bribery, extortion and abuse of power. Ethics Committee's Reponse? Indefinite delay.

Call for the Ethics Committee to appoint an outside counsel and investigate DeLay NOW - before Congress adjourns for the election season. Only the Ethics Committee can ensure that Congress is operating in the interests of the American people, not special interests.
The Complaint:

Count 1 - soliciting a bribe from Westar in exchange for legislation favorable to the energy company
Count 2 - laundering $190K in corporate PAC contributions thru the RNC then illegally distributing it to TX candidates
and
Count 3 - using Federal resources to track down the TX dems who fled the state in an attempt to thwart quorum for DeLay's redistricting plan


Ethics Committee Members:
***
Republicans
Joel Hefley (CO-5) 202.225.4422
Doc Hastings (WA-4)202.225.5816
Judy Biggert (IL-13)202.225.3515
Kenny Hulshof (MO-9)202.225.5712
Steven LaTourette (OH-14)202.225.5731

Democrats
Alan Mollohan (WV-1)202.225.4172
Stephanie Tubb Jones (OH-11) 202.225.7032
Gene Green (TX-29) 202.225.1688
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) 202.225.1766
Michael Doyle (PA-14)202.225.2135

Call these committee members and call your own representatives as well. If you don't then you can't complain when the ethics committee does nothing.

[vetwife]

25. Oh I faxed today..But I bet Zell and Saxby threw it in the garbage...

I will keep faxing....Zell hates me ! He and Chambliss will try their best to hold Delay in there. That is on the Senate side but on the Congress side I will call Congressman Lewis. That should do something !

[anarchy1999]

27. Byrd's staffer told me no faxes, they dump them as fast as they do

e-mails. Only phone calls and hand written letters. Period. Maybe you have more info and faxes do work, I'm just going with what Jacy in Senator Byrd's office had to say. She seemed to care and to be in the know. We talked at some length as to how to be most effective in communicating and having some small degree of influence.

[flaminbats]

31. interesting that Delay had a different opinion when Wright was Speaker..

and unlike Tom, Jim Wright accepted responsibility for his actions. Republicans would love having an ethics truce while they're in the majority, but naturally this would end if Democrats win back Congress.

[The_Casual_Observer]

14. This is classic, it means he is stepping down!

[anarchy1999]

15. Well thank you and how do you know?

Please tell.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. Oh, perhaps 40 years of observing what happens when somebody says

that they aren't stepping down because of a big scandal, thats all.

[anarchy1999]

19. Okay, it's all I want for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas along

with election day. Thank you for your insight, please share more. I sure do need it here in the conservative wasteland we call Bush home country, as in Dallas. Please share more.

[gavodotcom]

22. Relax, he's just "DeLay"ing the inevitable.

Denial just ain't a river in Egypt, a wise weapons inspector once said.

It'll come. You can imagine that there will be a lot of calls for his head once the media *really* smells scandal.

If it doesn't happen before, it'll blow up on Sunday. It might be too late in the week for Dems to really start pounding the guy over the head, although it looks like a good start so far.

Not only is he guilty of ethics violations, they look really bad. He's just getting in a few quips and looking for a successor before he's booted.

Right now, he's just pissed because he's been embarassed by an upstart. Reality will set in soon.

[anarchy1999]

24. I'm sorry but you've lost me as well, just how much more do they all

need for it to "really" smell? Give me a break.

[vetwife]

26. I got to agreee with Anarchy...if we did this, they wouldn't let us

finish dressing or eating dinner. They would be haulig out butts off to a judge. Much less, let us keep our jobs. Delay for Delay No Way ! should be a new bumper sticker ! Just thought that one up !

[gavodotcom]

28. It's an ethics rules violation, not an indictment.

Lahood, my rep --whom I despise-- basically said if DeLay's indicted, he'll step down.

Do you honestly think that he's not going to be indicted after all of this?

Having the second-most powerful house repub having to face criminal charges is MUCH better for dems than a former second-most powerful house repub having to face charges. Rather than just stepping down because his peers said "naughty boy," I truly hope he sticks around until he's indicted.

That's your story if you're a talking head, and that's what you're waiting for. I don't know what the big deal is, anyway. It's got a much better chance of being in everyone's minds if it's kept in the news cycle waiting for the indictment, which can't be far away. If I were the dems, I'd allow republicans to keep Delay flailing around looking like an idiot before I went all over the place talking about his resignation. But, apparently, that's just me.

And you're right, if it was a Dem, he'd be on the curb. But that's the difference between republicans and democrats. They pull off the righteous indignation bit much better than we do.

[Raster]

38. Perhaps now is the time for every democrat in the Texas House to...

...sue DeLay for ILLEGALLY Re-redrawing the Texas House districts. Toss a nice little ol' class action suit into the mix.

[enki23]

29. jesus. just *look* at the rotten motherfucker

delay needs to be put the fuck away.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. I say leave him there. He is the perfect representation of a Republican

Let the people know that he's where he's at because he's setting an example for all other crooked Republicans.

[woodcutter]

33. Send Fax To Hastert

I just got an e-mail to send a fax to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert asking Delay to step down as Majority Leader. Here is the link to their website. It's in the top right corner where it says: "Tell Hastert To Dump Tom Delay" Just sign on and they will fax the letter for you. Thanks

www.ourfuture.org

[Richardo]

34. Hastert would never move against his Svengali

He's Speaker BECAUSE of DeLay.

BUT: Send the fax anyway! :thumbsup:

[CBHagman]

35. His office number is [phone]

I already called that office and my congressman's to urge that DeLay step down.

Folks, the stench of corruption is bad enough, but the leadership of the House is fiddling while Rome burns anyway. They aren't getting appropriation bills done, and they were voting on gay marriage when they should have been dealing with minor issues such as, say, terrorists attacking a chemical tanker and starting Bhopal II.

You can look up your congressperson and any other leaders on the site below (local numbers and offices are listed, too).

www.vote-smart.org

[K8-EEE]

51. He Won't Step Down? Then We'll PUSH HIM DOWN...

God what an arrogant asshole! Thanks for the number, I will use it!

[PurityOfEssence]

36. This little Robespierre will go down like the first one: from within

Just lookin' for a Fouche with enough foresight and self-interest to turn enough of the assembly against him.

[Javaman]

37. The Texas eye job won't step down...

He's the ultimate control freak.

[gatlingforme]

39. This is a George Ryan(ex-gov of IL) replay. The Feds were knocking

on Ryans door for a while, he refused to answer but eventually he was caught too. He now faces 22 indictments against him. DeLay is refusing to see what is in store for him.

[Catfight]

40. Tom Dismay should be Dismissed! He is untrustworthy. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

41. Standing up for good against evil is hard work – it costs money and blood

Emboldened by the quick U.S. military victory in Iraq, the ‘Amen corner’ (friends of Israel) within the Congress cried foul to the Palestinian ‘road map.’ The House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called it “a confluence of deluded thinking between European elites, elements within the State Department bureaucracy, and a significant segment of the American intellectual community.’ In a March 12, ‘03 speech at the Union of Jewish Congregations of America, DeLay, referring to the road map, had said: “The Israelis don’t need to change course. They don’t need to travel the path of weakness as defined by the neo-appeasers.” On July 23, 2003, he told the influential AIPAC, “The United States must stand with Israel against Palestinian terror because Israel’s fight is our fight.” During his trip to the Holy Land the next week, he told a thronged hall in the Israeli Parliament building, “Standing up for good against evil is very hard work – it costs money and blood. But we’re willing to pay.” This, in spite of the fact that on July 11 a settler ran over and killed Yazan al-Tal, a 13-year old Palestinian child, south of Nablus and another 6-year old boy Mohammad Kabha was killed near Barta al-Sharqeyah by IDF within few days. What do you expect from fanatics like him?

more
http://pakistantimes.net/2004/10/06/oped3.htm

[Zhade]

48. "Israel’s fight is our fight" - the man is truly dangerous.

Thanks, but I'd rather the United States NOT be on the side of murderous war criminals like Ariel Sharon.

The Israeli people deserve so much better than that madman.

[seemslikeadream]

49. TRULY

If the religious right has declared war, they also see themselves as victims of war. Church and State reported, April, 2003:

"House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is helping a controversial Religious Right group raise money to defeat a so-called 'war on Christianity' in America and preserve the nation's alleged "Christian heritage."

DeLay has endorsed a campaign by the Rev. Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), which claims in a recent fund-raising letter that it will raise $12.6 million to

"stop the all-out assault on Christians being waged by our government, by America's educational institutions, by the media and throughout popular culture."
Dominion Mandate
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an organization that monitors the religious right, sums up the goals of the movement in one word: dominion. Sara Diamond in her book Road to Dominion is credited with recognizing dominion as a political goal.

"Our aim," according to Pat Robertson at a banquet in 1984, "is to gain dominion over society." The path to dominion was made clear when Robertson told the Denver Post in 1992 that his goal was to "take working control of the Republican Party."

Authors Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell have written an influential textbook for Christian schools titled America's Providential History.

"The Puritans are prime representatives of this "spirit of dominion... They recognized the scriptural mandates requiring Godly rule, and zealously set out to establish that in all aspects of society."

The term dominion means control over, in this case control over all the democratic institutions in this country. Dominion theology provides the theological rationale for a "christian" nation.

The Republican Party has been the key vehicle in the drive for control. Now that the religious right dominates both houses of Congress and the presidency, they are highly focused on the one remaining branch of government: the courts.

"Judges are the basis of the land's righteousness," said David Barton, a "Christian nation" activist. Barton is dedicated to taking down the "wall" of separation of church and state and was speaking about the 2002 elections. "We have a Senate election here in Texas. The only issue that should matter is judges."

David Barton was speaking at Worldview Weekend in April 2002, an event designed to teach fundamentalists how to gain political influence and bring government under religious control. Another speaker at that event was the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, but it was Barton's speech that captured the spirit of the 2002 elections: "The only issue that should matter is judges."

John F. Sugg writes in the Weekly Planet, Tampa, Florida, March 2004:

Dominion theologians ... preached ... that it was Christians' job to take over the world and impose biblical rule. Christ would not return, they said, until the church had claimed dominion over all of the world's governments and institutions ...

In 2000, the Republican Party of Texas declared that it "affirms that the United States is a Christian nation." Last month, that sentiment reached the national level. The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 would acknowledge Christianity's God as the "sovereign source" of our laws. It would reach back in history and reverse all judicial decisions that have built a wall between church and state, and it would prohibit federal judges from making such rulings in the future.

more
http://www.theocracywatch.org/introduction2.htm

[Zhade]

50. George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

[seemslikeadream]

52. not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion

George W. Bush is always careful to speak in favor of faith in general, not any faith in particular. Congressional leaders are less careful. Last spring Tom DeLay, soon to be House majority leader, told a church group that: "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity." He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics.

By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people.

Mr. DeLay isn't an obscure crank; he's the most powerful man in Congress. Still, is he an outlier? No. Don Nickles, now challenging the wounded Mr. Lott for Senate leadership, is less given to colorful statements, but is as closely aligned with the religious right as Mr. DeLay.

And the influence of the religious right spreads much further. The Internet commentator Atrios, who played a key role in bringing Mr. Lott's past to light, now urges us to look into the secretive Council for National Policy. This blandly named organization was founded by Tim LaHaye, co-author of the apocalyptic "Left Behind" novels, and is in effect a fundamentalist pressure group. As of 1998 the organization's membership contained many leading Congressional figures in the Republican Party, though none of the party's neoconservative intellectuals

more
http://www.theocracywatch.org/Krugman_Gotta_Have_Faith.html

[young_at_heart]

42. If anyone ever deserved to be fired, it's him!

I am still amazed that people in his district have picked this disgusting person so many times....are they just ignorant or what?

[ElementaryPenguin]

43. Delay would have been an imcomparable butcher for Hitler's Nazis

And he's a bloodsucking son-of-a-bitch for Bushler's Nazis!

:puke:
:argh:
:mad:

[seemslikeadream]

44. And so are some of his friends bloodsucking sons-of-a-bitches

The Indian Affairs Committee and a federal grand jury are investigating at least $50 million in lobbying and public relations fees Abramoff and Scanlon garnered from Indian tribes that operate gambling casinos. The FBI and a task force of five federal agencies are investigating campaign contributions the two men directed the tribes to make to members of Congress, and whether tribal funds were misused in the contracts the two men obtained or the fees they collected, government sources said.

The Indian Affairs Committee is seeking testimony from both men today but may not be able to question either one.

Tribal officials have told The Washington Post that Abramoff, whose lobbying fees must be disclosed to the public, encouraged them to hire Scanlon's firms for large amounts of money that did not have to be publicly revealed. Senate investigators discovered in March that Scanlon paid Abramoff at least $10 million. Neither the tribes nor Abramoff's former lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig, was aware of the payments, they have said.

E-mails obtained by The Post show that Abramoff and Scanlon worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help Texas shut a casino operated by the Tigua Indians in 2002, then persuaded the tribe to pay them $4.2 million to lobby Washington lawmakers to reopen it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58186-2004Sep28.html

BLOODSUCKING NO DOUBT

[arwalden]

45. Is DeLay The Next James Traficant

[0007]

46. Tom DeLay has more balls than Jesse James and Al Capone

wrapped up into one.

Tom will be kicked out of office, trust me. Now I hope they get Tom Craddick.

[porkrind]

47. Power-drunk

DeLay is the pinnacle of corruption, hubris, spite, and abuse of power. He's like a mob-boss, schoolyard bully, and TV evangelist all rolled into one. The fact that republicans are blind to his partisan strongarming and lies show the depth of their denial.

DeLay is a perfect example of what is wrong with America.
:dem:

---

Read about the Right-Wing "Master Plan": http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-contents.html

Have you read "War is a Racket"?: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Read George Orwell's classic "1984" free online here: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984

[NewYorkerfromMass]

53. Oh there's a cloud that hangs over the Capitol alright Nancy

but Delay is but a small waft of it.