I heard on Springer this morning about the Ethics committee

[Javaman]

reversing the ruling and going back to the way it had been concerning the indictment issue regarding Delay, is this correct?? Please tell me it's true.

edit for spelling

[ET Awful]

1. I hadn't heard of them reversing that rule, but they did reverse the rule

that required a tie vote in the committee to be broken by the majority leader. Prior to the rules changes, a tie vote in committee basically meant that an investigation would continue. That changed and required the majority leader (DeLay) to break the tie, obviously he wouldn't vote to have himself investigated. The changes yesterday reversed that rule change.

Or, that's the understanding I have anyway, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

[AllegroRondo]

2. They did go back to the old rules

and a tie vote now means an investigation.

However, as Nancy Pelosi pointed out, there is still the problem of staffing. Prior to this year, both parties had to agree on who to hire for committee staff. Now the Repubs have hired only Repub staffers. Because it is the staffers who do most of the legwork on investigations, it is pretty important to have non-partisans in these positions.

[Atman]

3. Almost. So far, it is true. But...

From what I hear, the dems are still fighting. As part of the rules changes, all of the DeLay opponents were sacked and replaced by cronies and political operatives or supporters of DeLay's. I think something like five members of the panel have received large campaign contributions from DeLay's PAC.

So, the dems are saying "Hey waitaminnut! Rules changes are not enough. We want the committee back to it's former self, since it's re-staffing was part of the whole offense in the first place."

The republicans quickly received their strategy from Karl; blame the dems now for not going along with thier magnanimous gesture. Clearly, they want Mr. DeLay cleared, but now the dems are still blocking the committee...it clearly shows the dems are interested only in protecting themselves against investigation of their own serious ethical violations. Of course, if any propaganda vocalizers in the Corporate Media saw Jon Stewart skewer whatshername the other night, the might remember what their job is supposed to be and refute the republican spinners. They might, in a wild flight of fancy, ask Denny Hassstttrtst (somethin' weird about that guy's name) about DeLay's PAC contributions to the very people charged with investigating him. A real live "journalist" would ask such questions, and follow up.

But you can bet all your crude futures on the fact that no one will say nothin, and the republicans will get days worth of free democrat-bashing air-time out of this.

[stellanoir]

4. heard on NPR this morning

that Hastert said there would be further modifications to the rules that they're still mulling over. The Democrats weren't responding until they learned specifically what those modifications would be.

I was fairly shocked to hear Hastert actually sounding somewhat reasonable about the matter. I think DeLay has really irked a lot of Repubs.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. I wouldn't go so far as to call it...

"Irked". I would say that they read the polls, see that he is on track to becoming a fatal liability and are acting on that information.

The dems are just helping the process of repukes eating their own along.

[lala_rawraw]

5. He will be declaring that

Dems are un-American or something along those lines. God, anyone ever see the movie Hackers? If only those two TV guys would suddenly appear. Ah, the dreams movies give us.