DELAY DEMANDS TO BE TRIED BY A REACTIONARY REPUBLICAN JUDGE

Have you ever been arrested? My first arrest-- and my most glorious-- was at a draft card burning demonstration in NYC when I was a college student. I wound up in a cell with The Fugs, Allen Ginsberg, Dr. Spock and all kinds of cool patriotic people. But they didn't negotiate with me about my mug shot and they didn't allow me to pick my own judge. And you don't want to KNOW what it was like north of Mazar-i-Sharif when I was arrested in Afghanistan with 50 kilos of local produce! Luckily it was a pre-Taliban era where just a very little grease went a very long way-- and a relative of the king's was a pal, well a kind of business partner, of your intrepid blogger. Anyway, after a brief visit to the local death camp-- I mean prison-- they did let me go (with my produce) but they never did let me chose my own judge.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who still hasn't be charged as a conspirator in the murder of his and Jack Abramoff's former business "associate," Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, is demanding a new judge in his money laundering and conspiracy cases. After being fingerprinted and all that, DeLay was due to be arraigned today. But his trial attorney, Dick DeGuerin, asked the judge to recuse himself. (In Texas judges are elected in partisan elections. You get either a Democrat or a Republican judge. DeLay wants a Republican, the more partisan the better, from his perspective.) According to the Associated Press, "In a courtroom session that ran less than 10 minutes, DeGuerin noted that Perkins had donated money to MoveOn.org, a liberal organization that he said has been selling T-shirts bearing the image of DeLay's mug shot." Judge Perkins wasn't wearing the t-shirt, hadn't bought one; wasn't even aware they existed. He thinks he made a donation to MoveOn.org a couple years ago, as have many thousands of Americans concerned with the way DeLay and the Republicans have been ruining America. Proceedings in DeLay's case are now on hold.



MORE-LIES-FROM-DELAY-UPDATE

This is gonna be a long and painful case. The Little Bug Man ain't going down with no grace nor dignity! And, like client, like lawyer. Upon checking the MoveOn.org site, one notices an unfortunate dearth of DeLay mug-shot t-shirts (I thought they would be good prizes in a high school civics class). Now it turns out, that although the mass media is parroting DeGuerin's lie like it came straight from the Bible, he had made the charge up! "I noticed yesterday Moveon.org, to which you have contributed, was selling T-shirts with Mr. Delay’s mugshot on it to raise money," were DeGuerin's exact words. MoveOn.org doesn't sell them and hasn't sold them-- ever. One thing you can always be sure of-- call a Republican on their crimes and get slimed and slandered. I hope Judge Perkins isn't a woos about this and takes DeGuerin to task for lying in the courtroom.