September 28, 2005: A great day for honesty. Some excerpts (italics mine):

AP: Delay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.

DeLay is the first House leader to be indicted while in office in at least a century, according to congressional historians.

“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today,” DeLay said in a statement.

Trent Lott and Delay to introduce provision into GOP rules to add racism and criminal action to official Leadership duties.

Bloomberg News: Frist Faces Heat as SEC Orders Formal Investigation

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist faces a near-term ordeal unwelcome to anyone, particularly an ambitious politician: an official probe into his personal financial dealings by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC authorized a formal order of investigation of Frist’s sale in June of HCA Inc. shares, people with direct knowledge of the inquiry said yesterday. The order allows the agency’s enforcement unit to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the order hasn’t been made public…

Frist, 53, directed the trustees of his blind trust to sell his shares on June 13, one month before the company said its second-quarter earnings would fail to meet analysts’ estimates. The trustees notified Frist on July 1 that the shares had been sold. When HCA issued its earnings notice on July 13, the stock fell $4.86 to $50.05, the biggest decline in more than two years. During the two-week period when Frist’s sale occurred, the shares averaged $57.21, reaching a 52-week high of $58.60 on June 22.

Frist denies any wrong doing, stating that if no insider knowledge of Terri Schiavo was needed to diagnose her, then it certainly wasn’t necessary to sell a stock!

AP: Iraq’s First Female Suicide Bomber Strikes

A woman strapped with explosives and disguised as a man blew herself up outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in a northern town Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding 30 in the first known attack by a female suicide bomber in the country’s bloody insurgency.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the blast, saying in an Internet posting that it was carried out by “a blessed sister.”

Not to be glib or to sound pleased, but you’d think she’d voice her opposition to the US via ballot, not bomb! One of the chief defenses of regime change for Iraq has been civil rights for women. This doesn’t mesh with the ‘unseen’ success stories we’ve been told about.

The problem with all this is that, well, we’ve been right: the corruption at the top of the GOP, failures in Iraq, and the ineptness of the administration are being PROVED in the papers every day. This sucks for America, but “the blame game” is the first step of reform.

~The Stuffed Tiger