Tom DeLay Quotes
I've been indicted for rules that don't even exist.
See Ulysses S. Grant for a similar American view that very year.
Attila the Hun
England, and most other countries of Europe, had put people who could not pay their debts in prison. When our founding fathers formed the constitution, they too saw debtors’ prison as an acceptable concept. 11 years earlier Congress had outlawed Federal Debtors’ Prisons. However many states and local governments then still had them. Smith wanted them abolished completely. What is fascinating about this quotation is that although the head of a religion, Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyle issues of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.
In modern America, we have improved somewhat. Now both kinds of issues take many years.
The Senator was referring to the large number of people who had been exonerated by DNA evidence while on Death Row.
The Mishnah was the first written codification of ancient Jewish laws and interpretations. The Books of Moses--the first 5 Books of the Old Testament was the fundamental law--God's law. The Mishnah was a combintion of administative and policy manuals and judicial precedents.
Thomas Dale DeLay is an American author and former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1985 until 2006. He was Republican Party House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005.
