Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In The Bullpen (Chad Evans) IDF Starts Incursion; UN Human Rights Council Session Concludes — “The IDF has moved into Gaza in an effort to locate the Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas over one week ago. Naturally many nations have condemned Israel without condemning the government of Palestine, that is run by Hamas, for attacking an Israeli outpost and taking a soldier hostage. To those nations, it is Israel who is being the aggressive one for responding to an attack and those same nations never utter a word over the daily rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel either.”

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Iraqi Documents: UNMOVIC Knew Of Renewed WMD Efforts (Updated And Bumped) — “Continuing my review of the many documents released from the DocEx files over the last two days, I found yet another interesting piece of information regarding Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of WMD. In a summary of a larger document, the translators found that Iraq had restarted its processing of castor-bean extraction, from which ricin can be developed — and that UNMOVIC discovered it in December 2002.”

Big Lizards (Dafydd) Here’s a Switch – — “In a bizarre twist of politics, the Democrats are fighting like the dickens over Rep. Tom DeLay… to keep him on the ballot in Texas, rather than to boot him off. The theory — and I think it’s so transparent, it’s going to create blowback — is that with DeLay’s “ethical” problems (i.e., he incurred the wrath of notoriously vindictive and partisan D.A. Ronnie Earle), having DeLay’s name on the ballot will so turn off Texas voters, that they’ll vote for the Democrat in a strongly Republican district.

I suppose it could work… if, as Democrats believe, Texas voters are all as dumb as a box of bratwurst. Otherwise, they will easily be able to figure out just what the Democrats are up to.”

Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love. ~ Talleyrand

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Ronnie Earle Gets Some Comeuppance — “A federal judge issued a little-noticed ruling that spells trouble for Travis County DA Ronnie Earle and his obsession with Tom DeLay. Dryly calling Earle’s efforts “innovative”, Judge Mike Lynch ruled that political groups broke no state laws against political coordination, one of the keystones of Earle’s efforts to indict DeLay.”

Dr. Sanity (Pat Santy) CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES — “Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see!”

Must be some sort of Holiday Weekend. I hope you are all having a great one!

Side Note: Anyone who is traveling to see the Florida Rat (AKA WDW) this summer, please send a note to lakelandjim at gmail dot com. I’d love to meet some of you in person.

The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it. ~ Charles de Secondat Montesquieu

As you might expect, this morning’s First Cup will focus on the Tom DeLay story. Here’s what others are saying:

Rhymes with Right (Greg) DeLay Withdrawing From CD22 Race! — This post is a very thorough look at the withdraw and the process for a replacement. Greg is one of the precinct chairs in CD22 and it looks like he didn’t get much sleep last night as he traced this story. Of particular interest is update 13 which examines Texas election law that will apply.

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) DeLay Steps Down, This Time For Good — “The Hammer has never made it onto my list of favorites in DC, but up until recently he performed reliably in keeping the caucus focused on the agenda. This prosecution pursued by Ronnie Earle is the worst kind of political hackery, and to the extent that this weighed on his campaign, DeLay’s withdrawal and resignation diminishes the political process.”

Power Line (John Hinderaker) DeLay Steps Down — “[A]s I’ve often said, the politically-inspired prosecution of DeLay by Travis County’s discredited DA, Ronnie Earle, is a bad joke. As far as we can tell at the moment, DeLay appears to be yet another victim of the Democrats’ politics of personal destruction–the only politics they know.”

Outside The Beltway (James Joyner) Tom DeLay Drops Re-Election Bid — “This is good news all around for the GOP. It helps stop the bleeding caused by the Abramoff scandal and related misdeeds that, even if he had no criminal complicity in, were direct results of decisions made by DeLay. This early in the cycle, there’s still plenty of time to find a clean candidate to replace DeLay as the Republican nominee.”

The Political Pit Bull (Greg Tinti) Tom DeLay Bows Out Of House Race (Video) — In addition to the video with Hardball host Christ Matthews and TIME Magazine’s Mike Allen on The Situation with Tucker Carlson, Greg had this to say, “First of all, Tucker Carlson’s snap analysis that this is “an ominous sign” for Republicans running for reelection in 2006 is utter rubbish. It might be an “ominous sign” for DeLay’s current legal situation, but this event itself is not representative of any problem for Republicans in 2006. Second, whether this decision was motivated by a concern for the Republican Party as a whole (as DeLay claims) or fear of more criminal allegations (as some on the left believe), this development is a positive one for Republicans.”

In this early mid-term primary, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay easily defeated his three challengers.

Opponent Tom Campbell, former general counsel for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, fell short of forcing the former House majority leader into a runoff.

DeLay won 62 percent of the vote in the 22nd Congressional District, which covers parts of Harris, Brazoria, Fort Bend and Galveston counties, according to the totals from 97 percent of precincts.

“I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today’s vote shows they have placed their full faith in me,” DeLay said in a written victory statement. “This race was about who can effectively represent the values and the priorities of the people in this district, and I’m proud to have earned, and overwhelmingly kept, that trust among Republican voters.”

His battle in November will be against Democrat Nick Lampson, Steve Stockman who is seeking a spot on the ballot as an independent, and a still to be chosen Libertarian Party candidate.

First DeLay will have his day in court facing partisan hack prosecutor Ronnie Earle’s Grand Jury-shopped charges.

Partisan hack Prosecutor Ronnie Earle isn’t happy with the legal tactics used by Rep. Tom Delay.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle said in court documents that the Republican is “attempting to leapfrog” over the usual court procedures by asking the state’s highest criminal court to dismiss all charges against him or to order a trial right away.

[...]

He has been pressing the state’s highest criminal court to address the charges quickly because he wants to regain his post before his colleagues call for new leadership elections later this month.

The case has been on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge’s dismissal of some of the charges.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has not decided whether to take the case but last week asked prosecutors to file briefs making their arguments.

The lawyers were given a week to file their arguments just about a week ago. This should certainly help get 2006 off to an interesting start.

The headline I put here is not the one you will see at most online news sources. Looking at some of the first page news links at Google News just now here is what I found:

• Update 3: DeLay’s Money Laundering Charges Upheld – Forbes
• Judges Upholds Some Charges Against DeLay – ABC News
• DeLay Faces Trial as Judge Rejects Motion to Dismiss Charges – Bloomberg
• Judge drops conspiracy charges against DeLay – USA Today
• DeLay’s Money Laundering Charges Upheld – San Francisco Chronicle
• Judge Upholds Some Charges Against Delay – New York Times
• Money laundering charges upheld against DeLay – News 8 Austin, TX
• Judge upholds money laundering charges against DeLay – KHOU, TX

Almost all parents have had the song, “one of these things is not like the others” go round and round in their head. That’s what I feel like here. Those are the headlines related to this story:

A judge dismissed the conspiracy charges Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the money-laundering counts, dashing the Texas congressman’s hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.

Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay’s attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.

Yes the money-laundering charge is still in play, but the conspiracy charge being dropped is the story. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway noticed the same thing and had this insight:

News, as the name implies, is about things that are different. An hour ago, Delay faced two serious charges; he now faces one. Considering that he faced the remaining charge when the day began, the new thing is the charge he no longer faces.

Right.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has this from Rep. DeLay’s office:

The judge notes in his letter that a motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct is still pending for the second indictment (also known as the “Do-Over Indictment”) and will require the hearing of evidence. The bulk of the arguments made in that motion concerned the manner in which Ronnie Earle went about getting this second indictment. Thus, the pending indictment can still yet be dismissed after additional hearings.

From today’s ruling:

[1] At least one motion to dismiss upon the basis of alleged prosecutorial misconduct was filed by Defendant DeLay and is presumed by the Court to have been adopted by defendants Colyandro and Ellis. This motion may require the hearing of evidence (a matter not yet resolved), and it is not included within the ambit of the present rulings.

Rep. Tom DeLay returns to court today with his lawyers asking for dismissal of the charges against him. AP:

Attorneys for Rep. Tom DeLay are hoping a judge will dismiss the conspiracy and money laundering charges against the former House majority leader so he can regain the powerful seat.

DeLay was to appear in court Tuesday before a judge who will decide whether the criminal case should continue to trial.

DeLay had to relinquish his leadership post in Congress after he was indicted in September. His attorneys are pushing for a December trial in hopes that DeLay is cleared so he can regain his title before Congress returns to session in January. Otherwise, lawmakers could elect a new majority leader.

Tuesday’s hearing is DeLay’s first before Senior Judge Pat Priest, who was appointed to the case after DeLay’s attorneys succeeded in having the first judge removed because of his campaign contributions to Democratic candidates and causes.

While we will have to wait and see how this plays out, to this non-lawyer it seems as if dismissing the charges is the correct thing to do. To me the charges apear to be nothing more than a political hatchet job without merit.

If the case goes forward to trial another hearing will most likely be held to determine if the case should be moved from Austin to DeLay’s home county of Fort Bend.

Whatever the results, I am not convinced that Rep. DeLay is the best person to lead the Republican Senate going forward. While he has driven many good initiatives, the Republicans need leadership that will return them to their fiscal conservatism and fight for those things that brought them to the majority. It is also important to have leadership that remembers that we are the majority.

UPDATE: AP’s latest report says,

Rep. Tom DeLay will have to wait for a decision on whether conspiracy charges against him will be dropped without a trial, a judge said Tuesday.

At a hearing, Senior Judge Pat Priest said he wanted to read written responses from both sides before making his ruling, and didn’t say how long it might take. The hearing on various motions was continuing Tuesday.

As I mentioned briefly last night I will be serving jury duty today. It’s not a trial jury, but the end of a six month stint on a grand jury. Rumor has it that Ronnie Earle will be traveling across the gulf to seek further charges against Tom DeLay. Well, maybe not. Still, I have been examining the DeLay case with a bit more interest than I would have had before my jury service.

The latest in Earle’s shennanigans would be laughable if it weren’t so outrageous.

A prosecutor tried to persuade a grand jury that Rep. Tom DeLay tacitly approved illegal use of campaign money and became angry when jurors decided against an indictment, according to two sources directly familiar with the proceeding.

“The mood was unpleasant,” one source said Wednesday, describing prosecutor Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle’s reaction.

The sources insisted on anonymity because of grand jury secrecy.

Earle presented evidence to three grand juries. Two of them returned indictments against DeLay, triggering a House Republican rule that forced the Texas Republican to step aside – at least temporarily – from his post as majority leader.

I can really only see two views on this whole affair. If you are on the side that wants to get DeLay by any means possible, well then you probably see Earle as a vigorous prosecutor doing his job. However, if you have half the sense that God gave a water buffalo you can probably see the abuse of power at work here.

One source said the sole evidence Earle presented to the grand jury that declined to indict was a DeLay interview with the prosecutor in August. DeLay reportedly said he was generally aware of activities of his associates.

The source said Earle tried to convince the jurors that if DeLay “didn’t say, ‘Stop it,’ he gave his tacit approval.”

I am “generally aware” of the activities of those I work with. Under that standard can I be charged if they are cheating on their taxes? Uh, doubt it. But if there’s a gray-haired prosecuter with a Texas drawl in the room this morning I’m going to be a bit concerned.