Jury finds Tom DeLay guilty on all counts

AP via RawStory, November 24th, 2010

The heavy-handed style that made Tom DeLay one of the nation’s most powerful and feared members of Congress also proved to be his downfall Wednesday when a jury determined he went too far in trying to influence elections, convicting the former House majority leader on two felonies that could send him to prison for decades.

Jurors deliberated for 19 hours before returning guilty verdicts on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. He faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge, although prosecutors haven’t yet recommended a sentence.

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DeLay’s lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said they planned to appeal the verdict.

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“This was about holding public officials accountable, that no one is above the law and all persons have to abide by the law, no matter how powerful or lofty the position he or she might hold,” [Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg] said.

Craig McDonald, the director of Texans for Public Justice, a liberal watchdog group whose complaints with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office helped lead to the investigation of DeLay’s PAC, said he was pleased by the verdict.

“We can’t undo the 2002 election, but a jury wisely acted to hold DeLay accountable for conspiring to steal it.”

more gravy…

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the history and current state of US foreign policy debunking various myths – including the myth that republicans are the warmongers and that democrats are more “peace” oriented, from FDR’s and Roosevelt’s vision for world domination by the U.S. after the second world war, through the current situation of U.S. toothless sanctions and delusional attempts at threats and references to a U.S led  “international community” that much of the rest of the world simply shrugs off and laughs at.

So by now, you know, the traditional backyard, the Western Hemisphere, a big piece of it, South America, it has become much more independent. They’re throwing out all US military bases. They’re moving towards some degree of integration. They’re not following the US orders. We just saw that when Brazil joined with Turkey to arrange for a mechanism for Iran to enrich substantial parts of its uranium outside of Iran.

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The issue of sanctions on Iran is a very striking illustration of the increasing limitations of US power. I mean, that’s kind of like-you read the foreign policy literature and, you know, government statements, this is the big problem. This is in fact called the year of Iran, and Iran is described as the greatest threat to world order. I’ll come back in a moment to what the threat is. But part of this is the US effort to try to get the world to accept the harsh US sanctions, not the UN sanctions. UN sanctions are pretty much toothless, so China and Russia and others go along with them willingly. The US sanctions are much harsher. They have no international legitimacy other than the force that lies behind them, and the US is getting desperate about the fact that the rest of the world isn’t following them.

So Brazil has-and Turkey, neighboring power and leading power in the Third World, have just essentially rejected them. Turkey’s announced it’s going to triple its growing trade with Iran, establish a new pipeline.

Brazil says, look, we go along with the Non-Aligned countries and most of the world in supporting Iran’s right to enrich uranium. But the big one is China. That they can’t push around, and they’re very upset about it. A couple of weeks ago, the State Department issued a warning to China and said that if you want to join the international community-meaning, what we run-you have to meet your international responsibilities, namely, follow US orders, follow our sanctions.

It probably elicited laughter in the Chinese foreign office. They cannot force them to do it. And this is indication of an erosion of the ability to coerce. You can have 800 military bases and spend as much as the rest of the world combined on the military, but you can’t force China, or even Turkey or even Brazil, to follow your orders.

What does it mean to be human?

In October 2007 Buhdy wrote…

The Big Picture Vol. 2

There has always been a struggle….most likely there always will be.

It is human nature to struggle, in some that is expressed as full out rebellion. In others it is reduced to complaining under their breath. Or worse….being afraid to even do that.

On the other side of the struggle, there is the range of full time crackdown on the rebels….actively supporting supporting the crushing of rebellion by The People, to indifference and willful ignorance. Ignorance has two forms those who cannot get information….and those who ignore inconvenient or uncomfortable information. Cracking down on ‘rebels….even those who merely mutter is a full time struggle for the status qou-sters

The two biggest chunks of information that are being ignored right now, imo, are Climate Crisis which is literally off the charts in its acceleration….and the fact that not just America, but pretty much the entire planet, is now a Corporatocrasy.