Not hearing much on the Delay indictments suddenly

[MtSmalls]

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I will just point to the fact that he was indicted on "charges" that weren't even illegal as proof of a political motivation. You can't really counter that, because it's a fact.

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Not that it will change Jax's mind (or Felix's or the rest of the koolaid bunch), but since he put the RNC talking point out there like a good little dittohead, here's the truth:

Texas state penal code has had the conspiracy issue outlined for years. It allows for a charge of conspiracy against defendants if they conspired to commit ANY felony, including an election code felony.

In 2003 (after the money laundering was done), the ELECTION CODE law was expanded to include, explicitly, conspiracy charges.

So the indictment Earle made, under the Texas state PENAL code, is more than valid. I anxiously await the trial date on both this charge and the money laundering charge.

[adios]

We'll have to wait and see how strong the case is methinks. Too soon to tell.

[pankwindu]

Earle says the new indictments were the result of additional information coming in over the weekend. One could interpret that to mean more of Delay's cronies are flipping to save their own skins. Or one could say he's making it up and he's just a partisan hack. I know which one the dittoheads will believe.

Others have mentioned the large Democrat component of his indictment record. Not receiving as much attention is the fact that he actually indicted himself in 1983 for campaign finance violations. (He discovered his campaign made a reporting error the previous year, and the only way to pay the fine was to get the offense on the official record, so he charged himself and paid the fine.) Sounds a lot more like someone who has honest respect for the law than a partisan hack.

Of course the dittohead response to this will undoubtedly be that it was all a ruse on his part to make it look like he's an honest prosecutor, so that he could lie in waiting and launch his evil plan against Hutchison 10 years later, and DeLay 20 years later.

Finally, the mere fact that DeLay has come out with fangs bared strongly suggests that he's in trouble, otherwise why not just sit back and let the facts exonerate him?

It's clear that you share the the corrupt ethical belief system of your masters.

Since when did you become a Delay-hater?

[andyfox]

I don't know anything about Ronnie Earle, or much about the indictments, but I do know Tom DeLay has said the following things:

"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."

"Our entire system is built on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it fell apart when we started denying God. If you stand up today and acknowledge God, they will try to destroy you... My mission is to bring us back to the Constitution and to Absolute Truth that has been manipulated and destroyed by a liberal worldview."

"People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ."

"Give me one example that proves evolution. One example! You can't."

"The judges need to be intimidated, they need to uphold the Constitution. If they don't behave, we're going to go after them in a big way."

"It has never been proven that air toxics are hazardous to people."

"I AM the federal government." –to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003

"So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." -explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" –to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005

[mmbt0ne]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En réponse à:</font><hr />
In 2003 (after the money laundering was done), the ELECTION CODE law was expanded to include, explicitly, conspiracy charges.

So the indictment Earle made, under the Texas state PENAL code, is more than valid. I anxiously await the trial date on both this charge and the money laundering charge.

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this true? I thought you couldn't be charged because of an act committed before it was considered a crime.

[jaxmike]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In 2003 (after the money laundering was done), the ELECTION CODE law was expanded to include, explicitly, conspiracy charges.

So the indictment Earle made, under the Texas state PENAL code, is more than valid. I anxiously await the trial date on both this charge and the money laundering charge.

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this true? I thought you couldn't be charged because of an act committed before it was considered a crime.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cannot.. That's, I believe, Ex Post Facto.

[vulturesrow]

Lets look a the facts:

Indictment 1: A charge for crime that wasnt even a crime at the time DeLay allegedly commited the crime.

Indictment 2: A charge of money laundering. A quick persual of Texas penal code on money laundering reveals this is tenuous at best. Also, Earle admitted to trying to indict DeLay on a money laundering charge with a previous grand jury and was unable to do so. We get a motion to dismiss the first indictment, and in the span of less than a day, Earle manages to find and convince a grand jury that this indictment had merit. Color me skeptical.

People are trying to sidetrack the issue with attacks on DeLay's character. But I have yet to see a good answer to the facts I listed. To those who claim that Earle has indicted more Democrats than Repbulicans, so what? For many years the Democrats dominated Texas politics and certainly there were rifts and political enemies gained within the party. Also, Earle has brought tenuous charges against people before and been shut down.

[DVaut1]

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People are trying to sidetrack the issue with attacks on DeLay's character

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Also, Earle has brought tenuous charges against people before and been shut down.

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Let's, for the sake of the argument, say that we should only judge the charges against DeLay based on the merits of the case(s).

Now, you seem to want to be critical of people for being preoccupied with issues of DeLay's character - and these don't necessarily have any bearing on the case. Okay, on it's own, fair enough.

Yet you also want to seem to be critical of Earle's past behavior/failures in his role as DA as well. On it's own, perfectly fair - but this would seem to invalidate our "let's just stick to the merits of the case" idea, would it not?

It seems to me no one really knows whether or not this case has merit or not; so I don't think it's fair to impugn people for using DeLay's character issues as a variable in speculation, if we're going to replace such variables with other variables that don't necessarily apply to the merits of the case.

In other words, I think the "DeLay has a shady history ---&gt; he might be guilty" is just as valid/relevant as "Earle has a shady history ---&gt; these charges are bogus".