From the Houston Chronicle:

BACK in 1999 when the U.S. Senate tried and ultimately acquitted President Bill Clinton after he was impeached by the House, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas had no doubt about the seriousness of the alleged crime. Clinton stood accused of lying under oath and obstructing the investigation of his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky.

"What would we be telling Americans," Hutchison asked, "if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The president lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way. I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away."

As news accounts indicate special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald might be preparing to bring perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Bush administration officials involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, Hutchison is taking a different view. Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, she seemed quite willing to look away from such violations this time around.

The senator decried the tendency of prosecutors and district attorneys to "go for technicalities, sort of a gotcha mentality in this country." If Fitzgerald does return indictments, she hoped that they would involve a crime and not some "perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on a crime."

When Meet the Press host Tim Russert pointed out the contradiction between her past and current positions on perjury and obstruction, Hutchison responded that there were other charges against Clinton and, "I'm not saying that those were not crimes. They are." Hutchison went on to express sympathy for homemaking maven Martha Stewart, convicted "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."

One cannot pick and choose when a charge is justified. Lying to investigators and grand juries is not a technicality. Our system of law depends on the ability of law enforcement to get at the truth, both in interviews with investigators and in sworn testimony in court. The penalties can be personally devastating and often do not hinge on other crimes. Former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros continues to be dogged by a decade-long investigation set off by his admitted lies to FBI agents vetting him for a Cabinet post about how much money he had paid a former mistress, an act that was not a crime.

If Hutchison found perjury and obstruction reason enough to throw a president out of office, surely those offenses would be sufficient cause to charge people if they obstructed a probe of a potential violation of national security laws. The unmasking of a covert CIA operative can have life and death consequences for previous associates met over the years in countries around the world.

Public officials such as Sen. Hutchison do not enhance their stature when they seem to support one standard of justice for officials of the opposing party and another for their own. What was good for the Democratic goose in the Clinton impeachment trial should be good enough for the Republican gander in the Plame investigation.

So, Ms. Pretty-Pretty Princess, why is Democratic lying bad and Republican lying good? Let me put it in Biblical terms that all good Republi-vangelicals should know:

Why is the mote in Mr. Clinton's eye grounds for throwing him out of office, but the beam in Mr. Rove's and Mr. Libby's (and Mr. DeLay's and Mr. Frist's) eye is "just a technicality"? Perhaps because all of your good works are as dry as sepulchres?

Not ringing a bell? Let me quote Matthew 23:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

"hypocrites" "extortion and excess" "Full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness"

Wow, that DOESsounds a lot like the Republican Party!
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Thanks to Raw Story:

Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) bid on a wicker basket two weekends ago at the Needville Harvest Festival in Fort Bend County in his home state. And he won not just the basket, but the gadget inside it, too — a paper shredder, Roll Call's Mary Anne Akers reports Tuesday. (subscription only)

Excerpts:

The shredder purchase would have perhaps remained a secret if DeLay’s potential 2006 Democratic opponent, Nick Lampson, hadn’t gleefully spilled the beans at a fundraiser last week. A national political reporter was also on hand at the festival to witness the basket/shredder bid. (So stay tuned for more details, including how much the Hammer paid for the shredder.)

A former House Member who was victimized by the redistricting engineered by DeLay, Lampson is having a ball telling the story of DeLay’s rather ironic purchase.

“Nobody needs a paper shredder more than Tom DeLay,” Lampson’s campaign manager, Mike Malaise, told HOH. “This was a very practical purchase, and we’re sure the paper shredder will see a lot of use in the DeLay camp.”

He said Houston may just see its second straight white Christmas “when it starts snowing TRMPAC documents this year.”

Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

AMERICAblog Blasts Kay Bailey Hutchison

Kay Bailey Hutchison, during WWII traitors who leaked the names of American agents were shot. Yet today, you defend treason. Why do you hate America?
by John in DC - 10/24/2005 12:00:00 AM

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has a soft spot in her heart for traitors.

[...]

PS Feel free to let Senator Hutchison know there's a new t-shirt coming out with her name on it, and the name of every Republican Senator who support treason.

She also had a very, very different idea about things when Bill Clinton was in office and going through impeachment.
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Forget Gay Marriage! It seems the Texas legislature is thinking maybe we should just ban marriage altogether.

Not only do they want to make something that's already illegal (gay marriage), well, illegal they also want to end a long time legal institution of heterosexual marriage as well.

I guess that would make things equal. No marriage. period.

http://www.savetexasmarriage.com/readlanguage.php
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Tom DeLay reported to the Harris County Sheriff in Houston where he was fingerprinted, a mugshot was taken, and he was released on $10,000 bond. He showed up at 12:15 and was free before 1:00 PM today.

This is in anticipation of his appearance in Court on Friday. The Houston Chronicle has the story.

The Chronicle also lists back stories and documents in this case in a sidebar at the same link.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

The Free Enterprise Fund wants you to believe that Ronnie Earle is a bad boy (actually, they even stoop so low as to rob him of humanity). Exactly who is this "Free Enterprise Fund"? Why would they even care?

Well, their chairman (or chariman, as the linked page states) is Mallory Factor. Factor is a "major fundraiser" for George W. Bush. He has said that Democrats are attacking DeLay because he defends "free market principles" - which apparently include buying a Congressman and redrawing the entire Congressional District map. He's a hard-core Republican financier and back-room insider in the style of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. He's managed to help get at least one of his cronies a nice job at The Wall Street Journal.

Then there's Executive Director E. O'Brien Murray - whose blank profile speaks volumes about how this group wants to disclose who they are and what they do. Not only is this guy an enigma to his own organization, but he doesn't even come up in an internet search. The same is true for their "Vice President for Strategic Programs" Steve Goodrick.

What about Lawrence A. Hunter, Ph.D., their Vice President & Chief Economist? Well, at least this guy really exists (the others probably do, too - they are just stuck in the smoke-filled back-rooms). He used to work for the incestuous combination of Freedomworks/Empoweramerica, which is lead by none other than Dick Armey.

Basically, the FEF is just a shill for the Club for Growth. Apparently, the Club is too well-known now to pull in back-room deals.

This is what the right has become incredibly skilled at - setting up shadowy back-room attack groups (think Swift Boats) for the express purpose of keeping their candidates clean while they slime the opposition.
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Republicans are worried. The prosecution of Tom DeLay may turn the disgraced Party Leader into a lead domino - his fall in turning knocking down Republican after Republican as the corruption that has eaten its way through the Republican Party is exposed. How worried?

The Free Enterprise Fund, a conservative Republican-shadow-attack organization, is now paying FOX network (big surprise!) to air a television commercial that smears Prosecutor Ronnie Earle an "attack dog". It warns that a prosecutor with an ax to grind can be "dangerous".

Not that Ronnie Earle has such an ax (other than against corruption), but the Republicans actually got one right - a politically motivated prosecution is dangerous. They should know. They are the ones that let their pet attack dog, Ken Starr, hump the leg of the American people for five long years. Even Starr himself has admitted (see link above) that his investigation never should have progressed in the manner it did. Of course, a dog will follow the Meaty Bone no matter where its master puts it. In this case, it stuck it in the pants of a sitting President. No matter, the job is more important than the man - and the American people deserve to know if their elected leader committed a crime.

Ok, so why is this NOT true for Tom DeLay?

Let's examine the facts:

Ken Starr was authorized to investigate the Whitewater investment and to see if Bill Clinton broke a law by losing money in a private investment. He ended up talking to what appeared to be a rather naive young intern who had been entrapped by a power-hungry bitch of a Clinton-hater (or, if you prefer, a power-hungry bitch of an opportunist).

By contrast, Ronnie Earle was investigating the biggest political scandal in Texas history - the forced redistricting of Texas Congressional districts only two years after the last redistricting process. A series of grand juries indicted several of DeLay's associates for criminal activity surrounding that process, and the evidence appeared to implicate DeLay himself. Earle then asked a separate grand jury to weigh the evidence against DeLay - and the grand jury agreed there was sufficient evidence to go to full court proceedings where the Congressman could either be convicted or fully clear his name in a court of law.

Showing blatant disregard for the facts, or perhaps believing that the Congressman will never be able to clear his name in a fair and balanced courtroom (where he doesn't hold all the cards and can't bully anyone to vote his way), Republicans are saying that Ronnie Earle has a long history of prosecuting Republicans.

He does. Crooked ones. Democrats, too. In fact, the man actually filed charges against himself for missing a financial disclosure deadline.

And where, exactly, did Ken Starr ever file charges against himself for his misbehavior.

Yeah, I thought so.
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

Some info about Harriet Miers from The Institute on Money in State Politics:

Although not a prolific contributor to state-level political campaigns, Miers did give $30,357 to Republican candidates in Texas from 1994 to 2000, primarily to Bush.

Yeah, it isn't much, but how's this for managing a conflict-of-interest?

Miers, then the Bush-appointed chairwoman to the Texas Lottery Commission, gave $22,960 to
Bush for his 1998 re-election campaign.

She also maxed out her personal contributions to Bush's two Presidential campaigns - which is perfectly fine and is her right as a private citizen. I'm not exactly sure about making contributions to your boss, though. Some places tend to frown on that, for what should be obvious reasons.

In today's political world, it probably isn't possible to find someone who didn't give anything to anyone anywhere. However, giving huge chunks (and $23,000 isn't anything to sneeze at) of money to the person that appointed you to a pretty nice state job is a peek at how she might manage any future litigation that George W. Bush might be a party to in front of the Court.

It deserves to be examined and she should answer questions about it. But don't look for John Cornyn to ask them - he's one of the people she's given money to.
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

LINK: Top 10 Congressional Mis-Leaders

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed the underbelly of the oil industry, and now Greenpeace is exposing the politicians stained with oil money. In the wake of the storms, Louisiana and Texas faced massive oil spills as a result of platforms and refineries that couldn’t withstand hurricane force winds. But some members of Congress can’t withstand pressure from the oil industry, and are using the hurricane tragedies as an excuse to actually spread these offshore drilling operations to other vulnerable coastal communities.

Including Texas favorites:
Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX)
Conaway, Mike (R-TX)
Barton, Joe (R-TX)
Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)
Sessions, Pete (R-TX)
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!

1) "I AM the federal government." -- snarled at 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 (Source)

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

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

4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." -- explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News (Source)

5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." -- bloviating about the Republican agenda, March 12, 2003 (Source)

6) "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." -- pontificating on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999 (Source)

7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though." -- explaining his family values in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004 (Source)

8) "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church." -- interpreting the Constitution (Source)

9) "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." -- during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996 (Source)

10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." -- in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995 (Source)
Rabid conservatism defeats itself!