I got chills reading this brief, but very truthful op-ed from Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Barack Obama's win last night was just one step into the future, lets hope Krugman's words ring loud and clear for future generations - Beware the Monsters...

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”! Read on...

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Just in case you forgot, Tom DeLay appeared on Hardball this afternoon to remind us just how much of a scumbag he is. Chris Matthews asks about the tone of the campaign and whether it's been appropriate. Of course not, Delay responds, McCain hasn't been assertive enough. Get that? McCain's campaign hasn't been sleazy enough according to this a$$hole. In order to make his case, DeLay goes down the laundry list of Obama smears, including but not limited to, he's a Marxist, a radical, a black liberation theologist, terrorist sympathizer, and Constitution-hater. Please don't watch this clip if you have high blood pressure. It should really go down in the Hall of Shame, something we can look back on in five or ten years from now and marvel at.

"He must agree with the Marxist theology of black liberation theology."

"I tagged Barack Obama as a Marxist months ago. [...] He's a Marxist, or a socialist at best."

The AP, to their credit, does a great job of debunking DeLay's despicable smear of Obama re: his views on the Constitution.

Whatever you may think of Tweety, he usually does a good job of smacking around wingnut Congressmen. For some reason, though, he always grovels at DeLay's feet. I just don't get it. I really don't get why any network (other than FOX, of course) would give this putz a platform to spew his crap.

ABC:

MINNEAPOLIS -- Tom DeLay, the former House GOP majority leader whose connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff brought scandal and disgrace to the Republican party, returned to the spotlight in Minneapolis last night, helping to host a private party that drew hundreds of delegates and Republican officials.

DeLay's arrival was hardly welcomed by the campaign of Sen. John McCain. McCain led the Senate investigation that revealed many of the abuses connected to Abramoff, and DeLay has criticized McCain for years.

"He is no friend of ours," said one McCain campaign official. "But you can't really keep him out of the city."Read on...

The stink of Jack Abramoff just won't wash off the GOP. First John McCain attends a fundraiser coordinated by Abramoff buddy Ralph Reed, and now the poster child for Republican corruption shows up at his convention and is lauded by the party faithful as a hero.  There's no love lost between Delay and McCain and the Bug Man's presence at his convention is a clear slap in the face. That's gonna leave a mark...

  Disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been making noises for a couple of years now about creating his own MoveOn.org for the right activist group, which presumably would offer him a vehicle for, well, whatever it is DeLay does. Last November, he made it official, launching the Coalition for a Conservative Majority.

Since then, DeLay's outfit hasn't exactly made a splash. But Bob Novak reported that DeLay is still out there, pushing his little group, and imploring right-wing activists to send him a check.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has resurfaced, appealing for contributions to the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, which lists him as chairman and founder. DeLay suggested that this be enclosed with any contribution: ''I am thrilled to learn that you have gotten back in the fight against the left by forming" the new organization.

DeLay, who has endorsed John McCain after expressing misgivings, takes positions to the right of the Republican presidential candidate in his fund-raising appeal. DeLay asks: ''Are you concerned by the growing evidence that there are powerful forces inside our government and out who are quietly moving to have America absorbed into a globalist style 'North American Union' with Canada and Mexico?''

Yes, this is what DeLay has been reduced to. The former House majority leader wants people to believe -- as Tom Tancredo, Lou Dobbs and Ron Paul fear -- that U.S. borders will be dissolved and we'll have one big continental country. But if unhinged conservatives send the former exterminator a check, DeLay will step up to take on the "powerful forces inside our government."

I know there are going to be some people who actually run for their checkbook after getting DeLay's letter, but I just can't imagine what they're thinking.

Democrats.org:

The disgraced Tom DeLay is now stumping for McCain in Arizona. DeLay once said that he "might have to sit this one out" if McCain won the nomination.

Flashback . . .

During a private luncheon with Republican chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill, DeLay — who has criticized McCain for years — stepped up his attacks in the wake of the senator’s reemergence as a top presidential contender. DeLay said McCain has no principles and indicated he would not endorse the senator if he won the GOP primary.[..]

He added that a McCain triumph for the GOP nomination would destroy the Republican Party.

Why is it that every time I think of the Republican party this election cycle, images of the Titanic keep coming to mind?

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Why is the media asking Tom Delay on TV to give his opinions about anything? Didn't he resign in disgrace?

Even still, the corruption indicted former House Speaker, who rallied his power by gerrymandering Texas to death has a few words of advice for the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain: You don't need to change, but if you want my base, well, you need to change.

GS: Is there leeway there that conservatives are willing to give Senator McCain in order to make sure that he doesn’t lose the independents and the moderates he needs to win the White House?

TD: Sure, they’re not….I don’t think they’re demanding that he change in his position. They’re just demanding that if they…if you want us to work for you, if you want us to come out and vote for you instead of just voting against the Democrat, then you’ve got to answer some of these problems. Sure, I mean, you had conservatives supporting Rudy Giuliani, with his record on the social issues, they forgave him for those and I think they’ll do that. It is attitude and, and understanding that in order to put together a winning coalition, you’ve got to have a winning coalition. You can’t just have certain groups. What’s happening in the Republican party right now is they’re trying to find ourselves. We’re trying to define the party again. And he as the leader of the party needs to act like a leader and pull people together.

Tom Delay looked very shaky with Neil Cavuto yesterday afternoon as he slammed John McCain during the CPAC convention. He licked his lips and tore his politics apart saying that McCain flooded his supporters into the room so that he wouldn't get booed when he gave his big speech. Here's the play. The conservatives have made it quite apparent that they are willing to concede the the'08 election, (Ingraham said the same thing to O'Reilly) make believe they are re-grouping and after two years work on 2012.

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Bush and company have wounded their movement so severely that the Delay's and the Man on Dog Santorum's are cutting ties with them to try and become a viable option again. of course they supported his ever move, but they figure the media will turn a blind eye to that as the years go by.

George Macaca Allen was there too and you know that he would have been the Christian conservative of choice to run for president, but he had "that moment" which ended it for him and left a field so bad that Limbaugh was forced to root for Romney once McCain made his move. I was talking to Digby today and she told me that conservatives did the same thing with Bob Dole and they will do it now.

Do you get the feeling that the conservatives are gaming this thing? I knew that you would.

They know they are going to lose. They will blame the loss on the fact that McCain wasn't a real conservative (just like Bush.) They know when to fall back and regroup. They're already playing for the next election.

Everybody sing: Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.

Friday night's Worst Person In The World segment on Countdown features the drunken mother who let her 5 year old son drive because she was too intoxicated, military censors who banned Think Progress from their network in Baghdad and the Worst Person honors went to disgraced former Speaker of the House, Tom Delay. Keith lays wood to the Bug Man, who likes to quote the right wing, bald, nutjob talk show host, Mark Levin, who has repeatedly claimed that Olbermann wears a toupee. As the picture shows, Keith gives an on-air demonstration to prove him wrong.

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Olbermann: "Tom, hate to break it to you, I'm still involved in politics, what are you doing these days? I mean, since your own party ran you out of Congress."

Former Republican Congressman and poster child for government corruption Tom Delay appeared on Hardball today to talk with Chris Matthews about the Larry Craig sex scandal. I knew this was going to be bad when Matthews introduced him as Mr. Leader. Matthews has a strange fascination with Delay and allows him an extraordinary amount of time to rehash every scandal to involve a Democrat in the past twenty years while denying the stench of hypocrisy that emanates from the Republican Party. Delay's basic argument is that Republicans deal with their bad apples while the Democrats rally behind theirs and re-elect them. Try not to laugh too loud or throw anything breakable...tear it up in the comments...

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Why Matthews and MSNBC continues to let garbage like Tom Delay darken their network is beyond me. On the other hand, if you're looking for an expert on corruption, scandals and disgraced members of Congress, Tom Delay is your Huckleberry. What's next, Mark Foley hosting an episode of To Catch A Predator?

When Stephen starts off the interview by saying "you're my first indicted guest," you know you're in for a good Colbert-style skewering. "The Hammer" gets nailed on his dopey mugshot, his pending legal troubles, his likening of liberals to Adolph Hitler, and Terri Schiavo -- which Tom remembers as one of his finer moments.

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This giggle-fest from Tuesday's "Tucker" was priceless. Guests Pat Buchanan and A.B. Stoddard simply couldn't contain their laughter before or after watching a video taped interview with Tom Delay where he claims that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are "very very close to treason." When the interviewer suggests that treason is a pretty serious charge Tom assures him that he's right because he "looked it up while we were driving over here, what the definition of treason is."  Pure comedy gold...  

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Buchanan: "Call Gonzales!"

Stoddard: "It's amazing.  It used to be oh, how the mighty have fallen, and now it's oh, how the might have fallen and gone out on book tour."

Tucker, to his credit did mention The Bug Man was an intimidator....

Is it just me or does Tom look a little tipsy in that video?  

  As we mentioned last month, Tom DeLay's new book contains a passage which reads: "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler." Being that Tom DeLay has not a modicum of shame left, he again made the reference, this time equating his (perfectly legitimate) indictment to, oh, Hitler's extermination of six million Jews.

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First runner-up went to Robert F. Turner who penned this atrocious op-ed, which was gleefully picked up by The Eggman and Lauer, but had no basis in reality. 

 Keith Olbermann blasts the Bug Man, (one of the vilest men to ever roam the halls of Congress) after his Hitler quotes hit the Internets. Tom can't even perform a Google search let alone make any sense in his well researched book...I cower in fear of what the Hammer might say about me after this post...I'll let Keith explain...

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Olbermann: The quote with the context sucked out from around it is astonishing. In a new book, former Republican leader of the House Tom DeLay writes "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler." But, restore the context, as with anything else, and you change the meaning of any quote.

In this case, you make it worse. Mr. DeLay is comparing how he's been treated, to how the world was treated, by Hitler and the Nazis (Transcripts below the fold)

Continue reading »

(Guest blogged by Logan Murphy)

Howie Klein has a great post about Tom Delay's less than warm reception from the American Conservative Union.  Apparently, Tom's appointment to the ACU's board has other members mad as hornets.

Down With Tyranny:

OK, I'll try to make this my last mention of Tom DeLay until his trial; no promises though. Yesterday's Houston Chronicle got to the bottom of why 4 board members of the American Conservative Union resigned when the ACU brought on the Little Bug Man. I mean, we all know why-- no one wants to be associated with an outrageous and exposed crook like DeLay-- but what's interested is how they couched their disdain for their former champion.  (Read the rest of this story...)

SilentPatriot: In other Tom DeLay-related news, check out this excerpt from his new book. I wonder if he remembers writing this paragraph.

"I believe it was Adolf Hitler who first acknowledged that the big lie is more effective than the little lie, because the big lie is so audacious, such an astonishing immorality, that people have a hard time believing anyone would say it if it wasn't true. You know, the big lie — like the Holocaust never happened or dark-skinned people are less intelligent than light-skinned people. Well, by charging this big lie" — that DeLay violated campaign-finance laws in Texas — "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler."

Burnt Orange Report:

In the fall of 2005 dominos were falling fast in the Jack Abramoff investigation. And they were falling in one very clear direction, closer and closer to Tom DeLay.

First DeLay's former communications director fell [..]

Then DeLay's former deputy chief of staff fell [..]

And it looked like the former Chief of Staff was next [..]

In January 2006 Buckham shut down his business. In June 2006 the Washington Post revealed this choice nugget:

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.

Since then.....nothing. No Buckham plea. No indictments. Nothing.....was a U.S. Attorney fired to prevent the investigation from continuing to inexorably close in on Tom DeLay?

Nope. But something very fishy did indeed take place. The lead investigator was given a Federal Judgeship, a new division chief with connections to the GOP machine was appointed (AND REPORTEDLY, TO THE DELAY DEFENSE TEAM ITSELF) and presto...no more momentum in the investigation.