A while back we commented on the criminal trial of Tom "The Hammer" Delay and the prospects of Texas justice.Eventually a Texas jury found him guilty.
More recently Mr. Delay was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for conspiracy, 5 years for money laundering, with probation for 10 years.
The net effect was three years in prison to be followed by 7 years of probation.
Delay is a now a "probie" unless he wins on appeal.
His Enron buddy Skilling appealed all the way to the Supreme Court which held that the federal statute he was convicted under was ambiguous in some flawed degree, so they sent it back for further consideration by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Expect Mr. Delay to follow the same path, however, he has a more difficult path because his crime spree was not based on the same federal statute that Mr. Skilling's was, but instead was based on Texas state criminal law.
I see ol' Tom's still looking chipper and feeling unrepentant after all these years. One thing about the Wing-Nuts, they're true believers through and through, much like some of their "washed in the blood" Christian counterparts and their "Jihadi Joe" Islamic foes. That's why they will eventually win the battle for political dominance in America. They approach politics from the mindset of a radical fundamentalist fanatic, where there are no rules and the ends always justify the means.
ReplyDeleteThere's simply no stopping people with such a mindset. Prosecutions and other setbacks only increase the radical fervor among their followers, reinforcing their delusions of persecution at the hands of their "evil" fill in the blank opposition. Much as I like the thought of the Hammer doing time in the lockup, his glory days were long over anyway; if he ever does actually do time (call be skeptical), it'll be in a country club prison; and his conviction serves as little more than yet another rallying call for the GOP faithful.
Well said disaffected.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if anyone noticed this little item back around Christmas time:
ReplyDeleteDick Cheney and Halliburton avoid bribery charges in Nigeria ... by forking over $250 million
I had forgotten about the whole thing after first reading about it and then commenting on this blog that he'd surely get out of it. Turns out that it cost a mere $250M, which lets you know how much money these guys have and their true attitude towards "criminal justice."
That's more than likely why the Hammer remains so upbeat as well, although at his age three years in a country club US prison will probably feel like a well deserved and long overdue vacation. It'd give him a chance to clear his head, write a book or two, and compare notes with a few other upper class white collar criminals in the process. That's if ever actually does time that is...
On another note, I just converted to the Google Chrome web browser after growing increasingly disaffected with MS IE8. WOW, what a quantum improvement in every way! I highly recommend it to anyone that hasn't tried it yet. Especially if you regularly use Google Maps and/or street view. I'm thoroughly impressed and can't imagine why I didn't do this much sooner.
I posted a link to the Halliburton / Cheney / Nigeria story a while back in comments ... before the amount had been determined.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the followup.