Bad Deeds for 5-29-2009

Republican Lawmaker With Ties to Tom DeLay Aim to Weaken Travis County DA’s Office – State Rep. Wayne Christian has proposed legislation aimed at weakening the Travis County district attorney’s office, which became the pariah of Republicans everywhere after it indicted GOP stalwart Tom DeLay on charges of money laundering and violating election law.

Christian has ties to DeLay and his co-defendant and one-time associate John Colyandro. In addition, former District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who hastened the end of DeLay’s political career and indicted Colyandro, also named Christian in an indictment of the Texas Association of Business for violating campaign finance laws.

Christian’s signature piece of legislation, HB 566, would require that state elected officials and officers only be charged for official misconduct in their county of residence. The intent of that is clear: The Travis County DA’s office would no longer be able prosecute the vast majority of lawmakers on public corruption charges. That would now be the task of local prosecutors, who often don’t have the resources, if not the moxie, to indict their local representative.

 

Jim Wells County, Texas Ran on Seized Valuables and Cash – Cash and valuables seized from drivers in Jim Wells County, Texas, helped fund police, provided bonuses to secretaries.

 

Tom Tancredo Claims Sotomayor in “Latino KKK” – Tom Tancredo, the former Colorado congressman and radical anti-immigration activist, stepped up his attacks on judge Sonia Sotomayor Thursday. Appearing on CNN, Tancredo suggested that Sotomayor’s affiliation with the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights group, was equivalent to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He also said, “the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.”

However, “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.” is not La Raza’s motto. Instead, the group’s motto is “Strengthening America by promoting the advancement of Latino families.” The phrase that Tancredo incorrectly links to Sotomayor is, in fact, found only in the founding documents a wholly different group to which Sotomayor has no known affiliation.

 

Limbaugh Says Nominating Sotomayor Like Nominating KKK’s David Duke – Rush Limbaugh, following a trend of conservatives depicting Sonia Sotomayor as a dangerous racist, suggested that President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination had set back civil rights progress and compared Sotomayor to David Duke:

And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That’s what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive.

 

G. Gordon Liddy On Sotomayor: ‘Let’s Hope That The Key Conferences Aren’t When She’s Menstruating’ – Yesterday on his radio show, conservative host G. Gordon Liddy continued the right wing’s all-out assault on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First, just like Tom Tancredo, Liddy slammed Sotomayor’s affiliation with the civil rights group La Raza — and referred to the Spanish language as “illegal alien“:

I understand that they found out today that Miss Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, which means in illegal alien, “the race.” And that should not surprise anyone because she’s already on record with a number of racist comments.

Finished with the race-based attack, Liddy moved on to denigrate Sotomayor’s gender:

Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Regards,

Jim