# How Dare They Not Prosecute Tom Delay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280 "2010-08-24T12:43:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Captain\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@Captain\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/241 "2010-09-03T20:33:59Z")
What did Tom Delay do again? I really don’t know. Most of the American people don’t know and don’t care. White conservatives love him while liberals, especially non white ones, hate him and want him crucified. If Tom Delay died of a massive heart attack in a public place with him deficating out his trousers, I would dance a pagan dance of glee. Amen. praise Allah. Buddha is right all along. All the religions would intersect, causing World Peace, just because Congressman Tom died and shitted on his 40 dollar briefs. Fuck him. GO SAINTS! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/242 "2010-09-03T20:38:07Z")
An opportunity to burnish my non-partisan credentials, by rising in the defense of Tom DeLay! Not that bad! And odious, craven, vile, lying pustule on the rectum of the Body Politic, with all the instincts of a rattlesnake, but lacking the warmth. But not that bad! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/243 "2010-09-05T15:11:14Z")
Answer question in post 237. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/244 "2010-09-05T15:41:22Z")
Outside of this, do you mean? > [@](#): > > …In 1992, the U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against five of Tan’s factories. > > It said that employees were forced to work 84 hours a week with no overtime and below the territory’s then-minimum wage of $2.90 an hour. > > The suit also said that many of Tan’s employees were not allowed to leave their work sites or the barracks where they lived. > > Tan ended up paying $9 million in restitution to 1,200 employees. Up to that time, it was the largest fine ever imposed by the Labor Department… (emphasis added) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/245 "2010-09-06T16:20:08Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Outside of this, do you mean? > > > [@](#): > > > > …In 1992, the U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against five of Tan’s factories. > > > > It said that employees were forced to work 84 hours a week with no overtime and below the territory’s then-minimum wage of $2.90 an hour. > > > > The suit also said that many of Tan’s employees were not allowed to leave their work sites or the barracks where they lived. > > > > Tan ended up paying $9 million in restitution to 1,200 employees. Up to that time, it was the largest fine ever imposed by the Labor Department… > > (emphasis added) Yes, outside of that. Because that story shows that the system, as already in place, worked; no need for new laws. Workers mistreated, Labor Department sues of their behalf, owner coughs up record fine, which is actually distributed to aggrived workers. This is why _I_ brought this incident up a couple of pages ago. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/246 "2010-09-06T20:23:48Z")
Post #237, as is obvious to the meanest intelligence, was an effort to suggest some support for your previously unsupported conjecture: that poor ol’ Tom was misled by the wily Tans, a “Potemkin village”, I think you called it. And that he had no way of knowing that his statements were the utterest hogwash. Despite the fact that he clearly stated his own personal investigation, and his authoritative conclusions. Now you want us to re-write the sequence, so that _now_ post #237 is in support of your other unsupported conjecture, that Mr DeLay sincerely believed that laws already in place were sufficient to prevent such future bad behavior. Whch, apparently, they didn’t, but that isn’t your point, is it? Your point is that Mr DeLay _might_ have believed so! In which case, if we stretch our credulity to the breaking point, would introduce the merest, infinitesimal scrap of doubt. We need merely believe that Mr DeLay has the acute intellligence of a bowl of cottage cheese. Would you be so kind as to clarify which of these arguments you would like to advance? And if you are going to re-write any more of your previous posts, would you do so now? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/247 "2010-09-06T23:44:30Z")
Not re-writing anything. You insist on answers, I answer, then (if necessary) I explain. Kindly treat me with the same courtesy. What evidence, prior to 1997, should DeLay have looked at to know how bad things were? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/248 "2010-09-07T00:45:20Z")
Apparently, you are operating under the presumption that you have an utterly devestating point to make, just as soon as I admit something about the all-important date of 1997. Something so powerful that, when you pin me to some admission, my argument will be rendered into shards and fragments at a single blast. Either that, or you’re bluffing. I’m leaning in that direction, for the moment. So lets cut to the chase, shall we? Why don’t you presume that my answer is…whatever you would prefer. I can’t imagine why that date is so utterly crucial. So why don’t you just tell us what your getting at, here, and leave the dramatic foreshadowing to _Perry Mason_? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/249 "2010-09-07T01:41:34Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Apparently, you are operating under the presumption that you have an utterly devestating point to make, just as soon as I admit something about the all-important date of 1997. Something so powerful that, when you pin me to some admission, my argument will be rendered into shards and fragments at a single blast. > > Either that, or you’re bluffing. I’m leaning in that direction, for the moment. > > So lets cut to the chase, shall we? Why don’t you presume that my answer is…whatever you would prefer. I can’t imagine why that date is so utterly crucial. So why don’t you just tell us what your getting at, here, and leave the dramatic foreshadowing to _Perry Mason_? OK, then I imagine your answer is: nothing. There was no evidence post-1997 that DeLay should have relied upon to reach any particular conclusions. Agreed? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/250 "2010-09-07T02:41:43Z")
Oh, no you don’t! I know the difference between “prior” and “post”! Just because you may have seen someone with a striking resemblance to George Clooney falling off a turnip truck, doesn’t mean it was me! You’re trying to pull a slow one, well, you got to get up pretty early in the afternoon to fool me! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/251 "2010-09-07T03:23:35Z")
There’s no “gotcha” here, for a refreshing change, **elucidator**. This is a simple attrition strategy. He’ll keep responding with nonsense wrapped in high-school debatese until you get tired, just to avoid admitting yet another loss. Hope you’re having fun. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/252 "2010-09-07T03:50:59Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Oh, no you don’t! I know the difference between “prior” and “post”! Just because you may have seen someone with a striking resemblance to George Clooney falling off a turnip truck, doesn’t mean it was me! You’re trying to pull a slow one, well, you got to get up pretty early in the afternoon to fool me! Oops. My mistake, yes. PRIOR, as I asked in the earlier post. Was there evidence PRIOR to his 1997 statement and visit? You say no. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/253 "2010-09-07T06:07:18Z")
And then I asked outside of the previous “conviction” for just this sort of thing. Spoken in sarcasm, of course, which seems to have eluded you. By no stretch of the imagination am I willing to believe that Mr DeLay was entirely unaware of said actions. As for ongoing “issues”, we can look at this attendance at a gala in Saipan with Mr. Abramoff, Mr Tan, and other worthies celebrating New Years 1997. A fête worse than death, but I digress… It would be fair to suggest that his attendance means either a)he is unaware that he is supping with slime or b) he wasn’t about to admit it. It is only after the “investigation” by the radical Trotskyist Mr. Miller that he is moved to his own “investigation”. In which he concludes that Mr. Miller _et. al._ are full of shit, and no such dreadful circumstances exist. > [@](#): > > …However, after George Miller toured the island in 1998, he told a different story… > (snip) > > …DeLay said he’d heard the same allegations. > > “I wanted to see it for myself because of the kinds of charges (that have been made) — that I found to be totally false, incredible lies about the people of the Marianas Islands,” he said… So even if I grant you his utter ignorance, willful or no, as of a given date, there still remains the issue of his alleged “investigation”. You can believe, if you insist, that the truth is there were no such issues, Mr. DeLay speaks the pure unvarnished truth, that this was all a ghastly scheme to slander the good people of the Mariannas. So my answer isn’t so much “no” as “meh, who cares?”. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why you are so anxious to keep alive the slender possibility that Mr DeLay was utterly innocent of any possible sleaze factors in his hosts before 1997. By his own testimony, he heard of such things in 1998, investigated them and offered his investigation as authoritative. So its not ignorance he is claiming, he’s pretty much calling everybody else a liar. (So I was wrong before, he didn’t tiptoe up to the line of calling Mr. Miller a liar, he flat out said so. I retract, shamefacedly.) I am not prepared to accept that as fact. If you are so prepared, I can only hope your dear wife has power of attorney as well as power over attorney, otherwise I fear your life savings, your home, and the college tuition of the **Brickeritos** will soon find their way into the hands of a Nigerian scoundrel. But if the only way you will ever actually reveal this rhetorical juggernaut which you are threatening to unleash is for me to stipulate he knew nothing prior to 1997, sure, why not? OK, so, whaddaya got? Give it to me straight, counselor, I can take it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/254 "2010-09-10T17:42:34Z")
OK. I’m going to back off my righteous indignation here. I have spent the last several days trying to find more information on this DeLay legislation deal. It amazes me that there was apparently a decision to dump the bill before a floor vote and not one member in the House said a damn thing about it. Most especially, I imagined that if I looked hard enough I could find SOME statement by DeLay indicating that he was relying on existing law. He’s not obligated to make such a statement, but in light of the accusations about being in Ambramoff’s pocket, you’d think he’d want to bend over backwards to make clear that the appearance of impropriety was not actual impropriety. I have actually been through paper microfiche of Congressional reports, since it was not clear to me that on-line sources were complete. I got nuthin’. Not from DeLay, not from anyone. So: while I don’t agree DeLay is scum, I am now prepared to agree that a reasonable person, looking at this evidence, could easily reach that conclusion. So I withdraw my objections, and concede defeat on this point. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/255 "2010-09-10T18:39:27Z")
Classy. 'Nuf sed. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280/256 "2010-09-12T04:08:29Z")
Well done, gentlemen, thanks, and, yet, this is why the immediate answers of news cycles miss the mark so often. Hubbub leaves before decency. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dare-they-not-prosecute-tom-delay/551280.md?page=12)