THE TRIAL, By Franz Kafka

Housing the approximately 500,000 people in jail awaiting trial who can't afford bail costs $9 billion a year.[47] Most jail inmates are petty, nonviolent offenders. Twenty years ago most nonviolent defendants were released on their own recognizance (trusted to show up at trial). Now most are given bail, and most pay a bail bondsman to afford it.[48] 62% of jail inmates are awaiting trial.

I mean that's not as bad as it seems, is it? We must put our trust in our peace officers, after all. And if they have probable cause to arrest, book and charge someone with a crime...well they probably did it anyway. And do you really want Marijuanna dealers wandering your neighborhood awaiting trial? NOT YOU LIBERTINE, I WAS NOT ASKING YOU FOR CHRISSAKES!!! (Blesses himself)

A lot of people do not have to wait more than five or ten minutes after being arrested, booked and charged with a crime.

DeLay on causes of the Columbine High School massacre:

"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."

 

DeLay on separation of church and state:

" 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."

DeLay on politics:

"George W. is really saying the same things we are, only we are saying them differently."

"The judges need to be intimidated, they need to uphold the Constitution. If they don't behave, we're going to go after them in a big way."

DeLay on himself:

"I look mean because I have squinty eyes and I get passionate. But it comes across as mean on camera"

And Jesus H. Christ, what has happened to this former Majority Leader? A man of such integrity and foresightedness just seemed to evaporate into the mists of  woebegone!

October 20, 2005: DeLay walked into the bonding department of the Harris County Sheriff's Office shortly after noon and was fingerprinted, photographed and released after posting $10,000 bond, sheriff's spokeswoman Lisa Martinez said.

Outside the building, DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin blasted prosecutor Ronnie Earle, accusing him of singling out the Texas Republican for political retribution and planning to use DeLay's mug shot in Democratic mailings.

"He's got what he wanted. There's no reason for this. It was pure retaliation on the part of Ronnie Earle," DeGuerin said, holding up DeLay's mug shot. "There he is. Take a good look at him."

He also said the defense team "will expose his prosecution for what he is."(Watch: Report on DeLay being booked -- 2:03)

I would like to point out here that at the time the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives was being booked, he noted that he envisioned Christ and Christ's love just prior to being photographed at the police station so that he would look so good that people would see the Christ emanating from his face every time they viewed his booking photo.

So what has Delay been doing while awaiting trial for charges made in 2005?

As he awaits trial on money laundering charges, disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom Delay on Monday launched the latest phase of his extremist makeover on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Two years after publishing his book and 18 months after starting the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, Delay turned to the Cha Cha to complete his resurrection. Which is altogether fitting for the man who repeatedly compared himself to Jesus Christ. http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/resurrection-tom-delay

But how has this advocate of white slavery and gambling meccas managed to eke out a living all this time as a branded man?

To be sure, Delay has a lot of pans in the conservative fire, if not in Congress. He has returned as a frequent guest commentator and analyst on Fox and MSNBC. (No friend of John McCain and his campaign finance reforms, Delay said only "we'll see" when asked if he would vote for the Arizona Senator come November.)

Last year, Delay authored his own bilious right-wing screed, No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight. With former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, he launched the Coalition for a Conservative Majority as a counterweight to the progressive MoveOn.org. Unsurprisingly, the organization is housed in the same Capitol Hill building as his consulting business, Delay's First Principles.

Delay's one-time conservative allies are optimistic about his chances for a return to right-wing glory (provided, of course, he doesn't go to jail first.) Former Christian Coalition poster child and Jack Abramoff crony Ralph Reed said simply, "Tom gets it like few others do." And Americans for Tax Reform president and conservative ubermensche Grover Norquist said Delay "has the name ID and the trust to help make this work."

By "this," Norquist could very well be speaking of Tom Delay's resurrection from the political dead. But for a man who once compared himself to Jesus ("People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ") and said on the day of his booking in 2006, "let people see Christ through me," Tom Delay apparently has no doubt that he, too, will be risen.  http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000990.htm

WELL THE SON OF A BITCH IS BACK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE NEWSCASTS NOW!!!

"He wants to go to trial. He's been wanting to go to trial from the very beginning," says Dick DeGuerin, the high-profile Texas defense attorney who is representing DeLay. "There's no evidence by any stretch of the imagination that could convict him."

DeLay and the two other men allegedly raised $190,000 in corporate money in Texas through a fundraising committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and sent it the Republican National Committee, which in turn distributed the money to candidates in Texas, where corporate donations are banned. tpmmuckraker

He's waiting to go to trial. He's wishing to go to trial. He's wanting to go to trial. He just had to complete five years of meaningless appeals. You see he he found repub judges to hear his motions and it took years to appeal those idiotic rulings to more reasoned panels. There are other examples of justice denied of course.

Halliburton has become a primary suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has devastated the Gulf Coast, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the "cementing" process -- that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon.

"The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement," said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry.
The problem could have been a faulty cement plug at the bottom of the well, he said. Another possibility would be that cement between the pipe and well walls didn't harden properly and allowed gas to pass through it.

So how long do legal proceedings last when the perpetrator, the tortfeaser causes tens of billions of dollars in damages to people and property?

2008:  For many in this coastal town, the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster was an event so crushing that hard-bitten fishermen still get teary-eyed recalling ruined livelihoods, broken marriages and suicides.

But mostly, people in Cordova talk about the discouraging wait for legal retribution for the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

It's been almost 19 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground at Alaska's Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages. That amount has since been cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon Mobil Corp.

Now the town of 2,200 looks anxiously to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from Exxon on why the company should not have to pay punitive damages at all.  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/25/national/main3876277.shtml

Just remember folks, the meek shall inherit the earth but it will take a million years for the estate to get through probate proceedings.

Oh and I would like to take this opportunity to wish Andrea Mitchell all this best on this her 102nd birthday. Happy Birthday Andrea!!!