The Fray on America's exterminator.

If Pockets Were Picked, You Must Convict: Tom DeLay analysis in the Fray is just rolling in. Thrasymachus elaborately and coherently lays out "The Case Against DeLay" in BOTF:

In essence, what DeLay is accused of is conspiring to get money from the following list of corporate donors. . .

-Diversified Colletion Services ($50,000)
-Sears Roebuck ($25,000)
-Williams Companies ($25,000)
-Cornell Companies ($10,000)
-Bacardi U.S.A. ($20,000); and
-Questerra Corporation ($25,000)

. . .to the following Republican Texas State Legislature candidates, in violation of Texas law prohibiting corporate donations to individual candidates in Texas:

-Todd Baxter
-Dwayne Bohac
-Glenda Dawson
-Dan Flynn
-Rick Green
-Jack Stick; and
-Laura Taylor.

This was accomplished, according to the prosecutor, through a series of cash transfers which were individually legal, but which were cumulatively intended to serve an overarching illegal purpose, i.e.: the funnelling of money from corporate donors into the pockets of Texan candidates.

The alleged sequence of transactions is as follows:

1) Above-listed Corporations-----$---->Texans for a Republican Congressional Majority ["TRMPAC"]
2) TRMPAC-----$-------->Terry Nelson, of the Republican National Committee ["RNC"]
3) RNC-------$-------->Individual GOP Candidates.

Nobody disputes the fact that these transfers of funds actually occurred. The dispute is over whether they're all part of an overarching plan, and, if so, whether Tom DeLay was a participant in it.

T. believes that "there's enough here to hang [TRMPAC Chief James] Ellis and [RNC Deputy Chief of Staff Terry] Nelson."

Not buying the indictment, locdog replies that "there's nothing here":

there's nothing in texas election code that makes what TRMPAC did illegal. it is against the law for a political party or candidate to accept a donation from a corporation or labor union within sixty days of an election. it's against the law for a corporation or labor union to make such a donation. it is not against the law for a "general action committee" to give the RNC $190,000 dollars within sixty days of an election.

There's a broader defense of DeLay from locdog in this thread:

even if you could somehow prove to me that what TRMPAC did was illegal, you'd then have to prove that not only did delay know if it, but that he actively conspired to "knowingly [make] a political contribution in violation of...Texas Election Code," as the indictment charges. in other words, it's not enough to merely show that delay was aware of what was happening, and it's not enough to show that delay told TRMPAC to make it happen. you have to show that delay knowingly violated the law, i.e., you have to prove his intent.

good luck with that.

The_Bell constructs his topical juxtaposition—today it's DeLay with that ginormous squid. The Bell hasn't decided where the indictment falls politically:

Among the pundits at Slate, the view seems to be that this represents a huge and substantial political victory . . . for Republicans. The argument by Mr. Reed and Mr. Dickerson runs that the GOP has shed itself of its largest and most encumbering millstone while Democrats now find themselves bereft of a chief villain who aided them not only by probably being legitimately guilty as charged but looking and playing the part of an evil creep so convincingly.

DeLay himself predicted his tarring would ultimately stick to and prove far more disfiguring to Congressional Democrats than himself. "What the Democrats don't understand," he told host Chris Matthews during an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball last night, "what they have done today is so unified the Republicans, at a time when we were kind of falling apart and fighting with each other, that we are now so focused on our agenda, we're going to drive it home and defeat the Democrats by accomplishing our agenda."

And JohnLex7 reminds us that a liberal is just a conservative who's been sued …  KA11:50 a.m.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Boomer vs. X-er: From Basildan here, in response to David Yaffe's Music Box critique of Bob Dylan: No Direction Home:

Let's see, the good professor dismisses Scorsese as a "celebrity" director; Johnny Cash is a fumbler; Peter, Paul and Mary are criminals; unnamed PBS directors are hacks; Maria Muldaur & Suze Rotolo are nothing but star f*ckers; Liam Clancy is insufferably melodramtatic; Ginsburg looks like he's on desolation row; and Joan Baez is "eerily" well-preserved. We won't even itemize the shots he takes at that lying, thieving, adenoidal Starbucks sell-out Dylan.

I trust no one with an ounce of sense will take this sour review for anything but the jaded piece of crap that it is. I've seen No Direction Home, and it's as good a statement as we're ever going to get on the birth of an artist.

And one more thing for all the whiny Gen-Xers posting here. I'm really sorry you were born too late to experience the thrill--no matter how ephemeral it was--of being part of a generation that actually believed it had a place in the great scheme of things and could effect change for the better. It was quite a time. But, Hey Nineteen, don't blame us for how lousy it all turned out. The Eddie Haskells of the Boomer generation won the power struggle, and we all live in their world now.

Friday, September 23, 2005