Today's Newsday carries a story we've known about for awhile -- Tom DeLay holds between $50,000 and $100,000 in ExxonMobil stock and has aggressively pushed legislation which would shield the giant oil corporation from any liability for its pollution of drinking water all across the country. Here's their lede:

Dick Polman at the The Kansas City Star has an insightful piece about how the GOP faithful are rallying around their man, Tom DeLay, and what that means:

The New York Times reports that Tom DeLay is the main force behind a provision in the about-to-be-debated energy bill to funnel up to $2 billion over 10 years into research for recovering oil and gas from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Yesterday's main Republican talking point defending Tom DeLay was this:

"Tom DeLay did nothing wrong," Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., told reporters after the weekly GOP caucus meeting. "There's no evidence of any breaking of the House rules."

All of the news stories are about the same on the agreement reached between Travis County D.A. Ronnie Earle and Cracker Barrel for what is now termed an unintended illegal corporate contribution from the company to Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), DeLay's state-based committee that was instrumental in a 2002 GOP takeover of the State House.

Basically, the outlines of this settlement are like the other two settlements with Sears Roebuck and Diversified Collection:

Cracker Barrel:

Donors to DeLay Fund Put on Ethics Panel

Title says it all. Not really a surprise, though, huh?

Travis County drops charges against Cracker Barrel

Another corporate donor to TRMPAC apparently turns state's witness, and ponies up some more money ($50,000) to a public education campaign about the deleterious impact of corporate money in politics.

Details, if any, to follow.

What does $5,000 to Tom DeLay's legal defense fund and thousands more to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) get you?

$500,000 for a parking lot. The Lexington Herald-Leader does some enterprising reporting, and they get this:

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers put $500,000 in this year's federal budget to build a parking lot for a private resort on Lake Cumberland that is owned by one of his campaign contributors.

[...]

The Los Angeles Times released a story today entitled "Deals Reached in Texas Political Donation Inquiry." The Times reports that two of the companies accused of making the illegal political contributions, Sears Roebuck, Co. and DCS Inc., have "flipped" and are now cooperating with Travis County investigators. Both companies said that: