October 06, 2005
Rep. Tom DeLay said District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is prosecuting him for trying to involve corporate money in Texas politics, has taken such contributions himself."It's real interesting he has this crusade against corporate funds. He took corporate funds, and he's taken union funds, for his own re-election. That's against the law," Mr. DeLay told The Washington Times yesterday.
A review of Mr. Earle's campaign-finance filings in Texas shows that he has received contributions from the AFL-CIO, including a $250 donation on Aug. 29, 2000. He also has received contributions listed on the disclosure forms only as coming from the name of an incorporated entity, often a law firm.
Mr. Earle has said repeatedly that state law bars corporate and union contributions. Attempts to reach Mr. Earle yesterday for comment, including a phone message left on his assistant's voice mail detailing Mr. DeLay's charge, were unsuccessful.
So not only is he a politically motivated, partisan grand jury shopper, but he is also one of the very sort of corrupt politicians who he regularly rails against as being corrupted by corporate money.
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A Portland woman's flight home was stopped short in Reno, all because the message on the T-shirt she was wearing.Lorrie Heasley claims it's a freedom of speech privilege, but airline officials say the message brings safety concerns.
Heasley, "There are bigger problems in the country, I can't believe people can be so petty."
Heasley boarded her flight Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, headed for Portland, Oregon with a stopover in Reno. But when Southwest Airlines employees asked her to cover her shirt, her stop over became a stop off her flight.
"I was told that basically that I had to cover my shirt, or I was told if I cover the shirt I can basically stay on the plane."
So she covered the shirt, but during a nap while passengers were boarding in Reno the cover came off. And Southwest employees insisted, change the shirt, or change flights. "I didn't feel that I should have to change my shirt, because we live in the United States, and it's freedom of speech and it was based on the move "The Fockers", and I didn't think it should have offended anyone."
But it did.The shirt had pictures of members of the Bush Administration, and a phrase based on the movie "Meet the Fockers," but with one crucial vowel changed.
Oh. You seem to think that you have the right to subject a captive audience to an obscenity. Wrong. The airline was well within its rights to tell you to change the shirt or go elsewhere. After all – it was protecting the rights of all the other passengers. I might have more sympathy with you if the objection wee based upon your infantile politics rather than your infantile form of self-expression, but the airline made the correct call here. For that matter, it would have even been acceptable, legally, to have required that you to remove the political speech, since it was by private directive rather than government mandate.
Let me give an example. Many years ago, I worked for an amusement park that used the Looney Toons characters as part of its theme. It had a policy of asking patrons who wore Disney character clothing to the park to change the clothing or turning the shirt inside out. One could argue that it was a bad idea, but it certainly was not a violation of any constitutional right – that would have required public action.
The moonbats are, of course, out in full force on the usual liberal sites. They have, of course, no leg to stand on – especially since liberals are usually the first to call for censorship of offensive speech.
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Peter Daniel Young, 28, told The Associated Press during a jailhouse interview that serving time will be nothing compared to what caged animals suffer."As bad as it could get, it will never be as bad as it was for those mink," Young said. "I would do it all over again."
Now I’ll grant you that your jail sentence is not likely to end with you being skinned and turned into an article of clothing, but I think your time will be mighty unpleasant none the less. I’m curious – do you prefer the name “Susie” or “Michelle”?
Actually, I apologize for that question – I shouldn’t be joking about your place on the food chain in the Wisconsin state penal system (heh-heh-heh – I typed “penal”).
I guess what is particularly amusing is your self righteous belief that there was something noble and courageous about your actions.
Prosecutors believe Young and an accomplice were acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front when they broke onto mink farms in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin in 1997 and freed about 7,000 mink. The FBI considers groups like ALF among the nation's top domestic terrorist threats.Young, 28, scoffed at the comparison.
"If saving thousands of lives makes a terrorist, then I certainly embrace the label," Young said. "I would have been just as fast to act if those cages had been filled with human beings."
Yeah, that’s the ticket – those nasty little rodents are identical to human beings. No doubt you find the industrial-scale murder that went on at Auschwitz to be no more evil that what goes on at that farm. That, Peter, is why your ideology is utterly bankrupt, and why you can only succeed in imposing your ideological preferences by campaigns of violence and property destruction, not by persuasion. After all, sane people recognize the difference between human beings and animals, and recognize that human life does have an innately higher value that that of other creatures. If you cannot recognize that human beings are different, then you clearly have a problem. Quick – a boy and a puppy are in the middle of a road with a truck rushing at them at 70 MPH. Which should you save, or does it make a difference?
"Most people are just appalled I'd be put in prison for freeing the animals," he said. "I wish nothing short of the end of the entire (fur) industry ... they kill for what they do."
Actually, you moron, most folks are not troubled at all that you are going to be put in prison for engaging in breaking and entering, malicious vandalism of private property, and the attempted destruction of a business. Personally, I am appalled that you are not facing two years in prison for each mink that was turned loose.
Oh, and by the way, you do realize that those 7000 farm-bred mink could not survive in the wild, and would therefore died an equally horrible death – and that you are responsible for that. Did you wan all the local predators of the immorality of eating these confused and defenseless creatures?
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A Texas prosecutor tried to convince a grand jury that Representative Tom DeLay gave tacit approval to a series of laundered campaign contributions, and when jurors declined to indict, he became angry, according to two people directly familiar with the proceeding.The grand jury was one of three that considered whether there was probable cause to indict DeLay. Two other grand juries did indict the former House majority leader, who had to step aside temporarily under Republican rules.
Both indictments focused on an alleged scheme to provide corporate political donations to Texas legislative candidates in violation of state law.
The two people interviewed, who commented anonymously because of grand jury secrecy, said Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle became visibly angry when the grand jurors last week signed a document declining to indict, known as a ''no bill."
One person said the sole evidence Earle presented was a DeLay interview with the prosecutor, in which DeLay said he was generally aware of activities of his associates. He is charged in an alleged money- laundering scheme to funnel corporate donations to Texas legislative candidates in violation of state law.
The person said that Earle tried to convince the jurors that if DeLay ''didn't say 'Stop it,' he gave his tacit approval."
After the grand jurors declined to go forward, the mood ''was unpleasant," the other person said, describing Earle's reaction.
In other words, the grand jury that heard all the evidence determined there was no crime in DeLayÂ’s activities, but that was not good enough for Ronnie Earle. He therefore went to a grand jury that heard only cherry-picked elements of the case to secure the indictment that the better-informed grand jury refused to issue.
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October 05, 2005
On Friday evening, Rangel was asked in a follow-up talk on the station if he thought Cheney should step down."He should never have stepped up in the first place," Rangel said. "He's too old for the job and doesn't have the experience."
Cheney, responding, offered the following observation about Rangel, who is some 11 years older than the Vice President.
Months of verbal attacks from Rangel turned into a back and forth on Monday when the 64-year-old vice president said Rangel is "losing it," later adding that "Charlie is a lot older than I am, and it shows."
Now Rangel is waxing indignant over Cheney's comment -- arguing that Cheney ought to be ashamed of himself for attacking him for being a senior citizen!
"I think it ends when he apologizes for attacking me as a senior citizen. It's true that I'm much older than he is, but that has nothing to do with mental alertness," Rangel said.
I guess its true -- there are much more permissive standards for Democrats than Republicans, especially if the Democrat is black.
(Hat Tip -- Blogs for Bush)
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Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has added several more acts to the already circus-like investigation of alleged Republican campaign funding illegalities.The latest act unfolded on Tuesday afternoon when Earle disclosed that he had gone grand jury shopping on Friday after an indictment against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, which was returned last Wednesday, was questioned for its legality.
Working on its last day, a second grand jury declined to indict DeLay on Friday.
Earle's office said it received new information over the weekend, so it went to yet a third grand jury empaneled on Monday, the last possible day under the statute of limitations. That grand jury returned the new indictments.
Earle's panicked rush lends credence to those who complain that he is a partisan playing politics with the grand jury, and it gives ammunition to critics who argue that he has been hapless in his three-year probe.
Earle has been shopping for a friendly grand jury for years, and finally got one that could be led by the nose to indict his political foe with just a couple of hours worth of cajoling after the earlier one refused to give him what he wanted. It is time for a judge to dismiss the whole thing – and for Ronnie to be dismissed by the people of Travis County.
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October 04, 2005
While DeLay kept up his drumbeat on television and radio about partisan prosecution, the biggest effect of the new indictment on the criminal case was to make the case harder for prosecutors to prove. Most of the underlying allegations remain the same, but prosecutors now must prove DeLay conspired to launder money, a first-degree felony that carries a maximum life term. The previous conspiracy charge was a state-jail felony with a two-year maximum."They've upped the stakes," DeGuerin said.
The reindictment also consolidated DeLay's case with that of two associates, John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis of Washington, on the same charges, according to a statement from Earle's office.
First, the goal now is to destroy Tom Delay personally, not just politically, for daring to stand up to Earle’s political thuggery. Second, by consolidating the cases Earle is seeking to make sure that the jury gets confused as to who did what, making it more likely that the jury will convict DeLay of something because “he must have done something if he is on trial with these other two guys.â€
The other interesting detail is that Earle ran the new indictments past members of the expired grand jury over the weekend, after their term was over.
Prosecutors ran the idea of a money-laundering indictment against DeLay by the previous grand jury by phone over the weekend, sources close to the investigation said.
I’m curious – doesn’t that violate ethical and legal restrictions on disclosing material from an investigation and of grand jury proceedings to those outside the process, since the folks consulted were no longer part of a live grand jury? Isn’t that simply one more indication of how far this unethical little weasel from Travis County will go to overthrow the will of the majority of Texans – and the voters of the 22nd Congressional District?
UPDATE: National Review’s Media Blog has an interesting analysis of the new charges and why it may be that Ronnie Earle is again overreaching in an attempt to get a conviction where no actual criminal activity took place. It is also noted that the transaction that took place is substantially similar to other transactions that took place involving groups on both sides of the political fence – with the Democrats converting twice the dollar amount as the Republicans did.
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While DeLay kept up his drumbeat on television and radio about partisan prosecution, the biggest effect of the new indictment on the criminal case was to make the case harder for prosecutors to prove. Most of the underlying allegations remain the same, but prosecutors now must prove DeLay conspired to launder money, a first-degree felony that carries a maximum life term. The previous conspiracy charge was a state-jail felony with a two-year maximum."They've upped the stakes," DeGuerin said.
The reindictment also consolidated DeLay's case with that of two associates, John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis of Washington, on the same charges, according to a statement from Earle's office.
First, the goal now is to destroy Tom Delay personally, not just politically, for daring to stand up to Earle’s political thuggery. Second, by consolidating the cases Earle is seeking to make sure that the jury gets confused as to who did what, making it more likely that the jury will convict DeLay of something because “he must have done something if he is on trial with these other two guys.”
The other interesting detail is that Earle ran the new indictments past members of the expired grand jury over the weekend, after their term was over.
Prosecutors ran the idea of a money-laundering indictment against DeLay by the previous grand jury by phone over the weekend, sources close to the investigation said.
I’m curious – doesn’t that violate ethical and legal restrictions on disclosing material from an investigation and of grand jury proceedings to those outside the process, since the folks consulted were no longer part of a live grand jury? Isn’t that simply one more indication of how far this unethical little weasel from Travis County will go to overthrow the will of the majority of Texans – and the voters of the 22nd Congressional District?
UPDATE: National Review’s Media Blog has an interesting analysis of the new charges and why it may be that Ronnie Earle is again overreaching in an attempt to get a conviction where no actual criminal activity took place. It is also noted that the transaction that took place is substantially similar to other transactions that took place involving groups on both sides of the political fence – with the Democrats converting twice the dollar amount as the Republicans did.
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October 03, 2005
The new indictment comes hours after DeLay's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the first case. That motion was based on the argument that the conspiracy charge against DeLay was based on a law that wasn't effective until 2003, the year after the alleged money transfers.“Since the indictment charges no offense, and since you have professed not to be politically motivated in bringing this indictment, I request that you immediately agree to dismiss the indictment so that the political consequences can be reversed,” attorney Dick DeGuerin wrote in a letter to Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
The judge who will preside in DeLay's case is out of the country on vacation and couldn't rule on the motion. Other state district judges declined to rule on the motion in his place, said Colleen Davis, a law clerk to Austin attorney Bill White, also represents DeLay.
Ronnie Earle is such an incompetent partisan hack that he could not even get the law or the facts correct the first time he managed to get an indictment (out of six grand juries that heard evidence). Now he rushed a new grand jury into an indictment that is not any more substantial, but does at least cite the correct statutes.
When the judge gets back in the country, it is time for these charges to be dismissed with extreme prejudice.
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A marketing adviser was dropped by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign Monday after a newspaper reported she made disparaging remarks about her fellow New Yorkers who were killed on Sept. 11.Gia Medeiros, an expert on corporate teen-marketing, "worked on a project that has been concluded; she will not be doing any additional work for us," said Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis.
Medeiros was paid $73,462 by the Clinton campaign.
The New York Post reported Monday that Medeiros told a Boulder, Colo. group some weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that not all of those killed were good people.
"All of those people who died that day, those folks who we've heard toasted as angels and heroes and martyrs, well, they weren't all good people. I used to live in New York. I know it," she said.
"One friend of a friend had a husband who died. When I asked about their relationship, my friend said, `Terrible. He worked too much, drank too much, was never home with her or the kids.' They don't say that in the obituaries," Medeiros said.
Yeah, it is a bit tacky to have said it, but it is also true. Not every martyred victim of the 9/11 attacks was a great person. Some were drunks, others were adulterers, and some were criminals of one sort or another. While the vast majority of those killed that day were good and decent folks, we cannot deny that there were also some truly unpleasant folks who died when the Towers fell. Acknowledging that fact takes nothing away from the atrocity committed that day. Rather, it reminds us that those who died were a cross-section of American humanity, warts and all.
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A marketing adviser was dropped by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign Monday after a newspaper reported she made disparaging remarks about her fellow New Yorkers who were killed on Sept. 11.Gia Medeiros, an expert on corporate teen-marketing, "worked on a project that has been concluded; she will not be doing any additional work for us," said Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis.
Medeiros was paid $73,462 by the Clinton campaign.
The New York Post reported Monday that Medeiros told a Boulder, Colo. group some weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that not all of those killed were good people.
"All of those people who died that day, those folks who we've heard toasted as angels and heroes and martyrs, well, they weren't all good people. I used to live in New York. I know it," she said.
"One friend of a friend had a husband who died. When I asked about their relationship, my friend said, `Terrible. He worked too much, drank too much, was never home with her or the kids.' They don't say that in the obituaries," Medeiros said.
Yeah, it is a bit tacky to have said it, but it is also true. Not every martyred victim of the 9/11 attacks was a great person. Some were drunks, others were adulterers, and some were criminals of one sort or another. While the vast majority of those killed that day were good and decent folks, we cannot deny that there were also some truly unpleasant folks who died when the Towers fell. Acknowledging that fact takes nothing away from the atrocity committed that day. Rather, it reminds us that those who died were a cross-section of American humanity, warts and all.
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October 02, 2005
Close examination is needed of what, if any, laws were broken. The fund-raising PAC formed by Mr. DeLay (and run by his two associates) raised money to help elect Republican candidates to the Texas legislature in 2002. These funds came from many sources, including donors who gave as individuals within the contribution limits set by law.This money was apparently mingled in the PAC account with corporate contributions, allowable under Texas law for party administrative expenses. The PAC sent a check from that fund to the RNC in Washington for party-building activities. The RNC, as it does among many states, contributed funds to help Texas Republicans win elections.
The indictment sees all this as an illegal money-laundering. But Mr. Baran and other attorneys I have talked to say that charge is weak at best, because no one can prove corporate money mingled in an account flush with individual contributions was ever used to help elect the Texas candidates.
"The defense is going to be that the corporate money contributed to the Republican Party was not used for the contributions to the candidates. And that's true," Mr. Baran said. "Then the question becomes would the Texas contributions be made at all, but for the corporate money. And that's where the tie-in and alleged laundering comes in."
It is illegal under Texas law to use corporate money to defeat or elect candidates for public office. But campaign finance law experts note that until the McCain/Feingold finance reform took effect in 2002, it was common in both parties to exchange corporate money for "hard money" from individual donors.
Mr. DeLay says his PAC cleared the transactions with its lawyers and the RNC did likewise. And even The Washington Post, no fan of Mr. DeLay, editorialized that while this looked like an end run around the corporate contribution law, the "more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run."
I can't wait to see Ronnie Earle get his head handed to him again. After all -- given the fingibility of dollars, it is impossible to prove that the money used for these contributions was anything other than donations from individuals -- or that what this PAC did was substantially different than what every other PAC, Republican or Democrat, did to make their influence go further.
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For the second time in a three months, he has questioned if Dick Cheney is up to the office of Vice President based upon his age and health.
In an interview in August on NY1, the New York City-based all-news channel, Rep. Charles Rangel suggested that Cheney might be too sick to perform his job.On Friday evening, Rangel was asked in a follow-up talk on the station if he thought Cheney should step down.
"He should never have stepped up in the first place," Rangel said. "He's too old for the job and doesn't have the experience."
Later in Friday's interview, Rangel finished off a list of problems he had with Bush administration policies by adding: "I would like to believe he's sick rather than just mean and evil."
Fine, Charlie, we'll give up Dick Cheney -- but given that he is over a decade younger than you are (64, as opposed to your 75) it seems that you need to lead by example.
And if Rangel will not resign, when will the Democrats (supposedly the party of the old folks and every other special interest group) condemn him as a bigot?
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Two political action committees linked to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have been charged with attempting to circumvent to legal limits on campaign giving, the Federal Election Commission has ruled.According to the March 2004 FEC finding, Pelosi appears to have violated the same kind of arcane campaign finance regulation that spurred the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this week.
The San Francisco Chronicle explained at the time:
"The FEC ruled that two Pelosi political action committees created to help Democrats in the 2002 elections were related instead of being independent and therefore violated a rule against giving more than the maximum $5,000 annual contribution."
Pelosi, of course, continues to hold her leadership position, while Tom DeLay has had to relinquish his based upon an accusation.
And to think that the Democrats howled when the GOP attempted to change its internal rules on leadership positions to match those of the Democrats. They insist that the GOP meet a higher standard than they do -- because the GOP is the party of ethics and the Democrats are the party of corruption.
(Hat Tip -- GOPBloggers and Blogs for Bush)
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Today, though, the Washington Post began an offensive to bolster political hack Ronnie Earle's public image.
Earle has an eccentric streak, clearly, sometimes in the service of projecting a squeaky-clean image. He once filed charges against himself for submitting a campaign finance report a day late. He asked a judge to fine him, His Honor obliged, and Earle was out $212.Still, Earle can defy pigeonholing. Buck Wood, an Austin lawyer and friend of Earle's, says the prosecutor is "definitely a moderate," and that he's "not involved in the Democratic Party."
Raised on a cattle ranch in the tiny north Texas town of Birdville, Earle served briefly in the Texas House before being elected district attorney. A self-described "radical moderate," he has faced little serious opposition in his reelection campaigns. This comports with commonly heard descriptions of him -- adjectives such as "maverick," "idealist" and "crusader."
Indeed, Earle is a former Eagle Scout more interested in social policy than in collecting death-penalty convictions. He has taught a course at the University of Texas at Austin on "reweaving the fabric of community." Starting in the mid-1980s, he insisted that some of his prosecutors work in the same building as social workers and police officers in an effort to curb child abuse before it occurred.
And he has never hesitated to use his job as a bully pulpit. In a speech two weeks ago before a state lobbying group, Earle said, "corporate money in politics" has become "the fight of our generation of Americans. . . . It is our job -- our fight -- to rescue democracy from the money that has captured it."
Such pronouncements are typical Earle, says Texas Rep. Terry Keel (R), who served under Earle for nearly nine years before seeking public office himself.
"Ronnie has a very deep philosophical belief about good and evil," Keel said. "He sees corporate involvement in politics as an evil to be attacked at any costs."
And the profile even has an extended anecdote that is designed to show how Ronnie Earle is a fearless prosector who won't back down when he is right -- even if he ultimately cannot get at the corrupt officials he is seeking to bring down.
Ronnie Earle, the Texas prosecutor vilified by Rep. Tom DeLay as a "rogue district attorney" and an "unabashed partisan zealot," has heard worse.There was the time, for instance, that a prominent Texas Democrat vowed to murder him.
"He would hold all these press conferences and say terrible things about me," Earle said, referring to Bob Bullock, the future lieutenant governor whom Earle investigated for allegedly misusing government resources in the 1970s.
"I know at least twice people took guns away from him when he said he was going to kill me."
Earle, a Democrat, was laughing as he recounted the story in the Travis County district attorney's office last week. And like many sagas in Earle's career, the Bullock episode comes with a footnote.
Earle couldn't persuade the grand jury to indict Bullock, who was then the state's comptroller and struggling with a drinking problem. But years later, once Bullock had sobered up, the two men were recounting old times at Bullock's kitchen table.
"You know years ago when you investigated me?" Earle recalled Bullock telling him. "I was guilty as hell."
Now two things struck me with this story. First is the fact that Bullock "just happened" to go on to serve as lieutenant governor -- under George W. Bush (the two offices are elected separately in Texas). Second is that Bullock has been dead for six years, and so cannot defend himself against Earle's claims of murderous designs and confession of criminal wrong-doing.
But that, of course, is how Ronnie Earle works -- he'll attack a political opponent with all sorts of extreme accusations and let them stick to the target like brambles in a briar patch.
It has taken several years and six grand juries to get this nothngburger of an indictment. But we can expect more stories of this "courageous maverick prosecutor" in the weks and months to come.
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October 01, 2005
May the living Constitution rest in peace. The concept is utterly without meaning as a legal standard and, instead, is a recipe for unrestrained judicial power. Because the Constitution is a contract between the people and their government, its modification should require the consent of the parties to the agreement. Thus, a living Constitution can be analogized to an automobile lease agreement that the car dealer feels free to modify as his notions of a fair deal evolve.
I've used a similar analogy -- how many folks would sign a "living mortgage" that allowed the bank to change the terms over time without the consent of the borrower?
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