So through this interpretation of the statute, it would be legal for Perry to use a threat of a line item veto to defund the PIU in order to have any investigation he didn't like dropped? I mean it's legal to use the line item veto, it's legal to drop an investigation. This strikes me as problematic if true.
It does seem problematic in theory, but also true and also not problematic in practice. We have a good example of this already, when Perry did not issue any threats of any kind while the PIU was trying to destroy Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
I would argue that by that point, DeLay was seen as a liability more than an asset - he had no compunction trampling people in his quest for power, and had built up a nice list of enemies on both sides of the aisle. Throwing him to the wolves made a good amount of political sense.
In comparison, the current investigation could very well cripple Abbott as Governor, which has bigger ramifications for both the party and for Perry.
And again, we don't have access to the evidence the grand jury has, so maybe we should all stop farting towards the south when there's a north wind blowing.
Isn't that the entire point of this thread, though? If we can't discuss how we think the outcome will be, what's left?
And again, we don't have access to the evidence the grand jury has, so maybe we should all stop farting towards the south when there's a north wind blowing.
... or assuming you know what the outcome of the trial is before it's happened?
And again, we don't have access to the evidence the grand jury has, so maybe we should all stop farting towards the south when there's a north wind blowing.
... or assuming you know what the outcome of the trial is before it's happened?
Show me where I did this?
You're the only person in this conversation?
Sorry, since you were responding directly to me I thought it was directed at me.
0
Options
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
Those DA's probably weren't caught on video being belligerent and throwing around the weight of their office. I don't get why Perry didn't just vocalize his concern, encourage the voters to recall her and leave it that, it's not like she was going to win re-election, in fact she had agreed not to run.
I figure the whole thing is going to come down to the alleged aides he sent to "bribe" her to quit, and what they say on the stand. I still think he was trying to get some sort of control over the cancer group investigation, but we'll probably never know that for sure.
Dark_Side on
0
Options
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited August 2014
Edit: eh. Don't care. We'll see how it shakes out
SummaryJudgment on
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Plus, and I haaattte myself for saying this, to be fair to Rick Perry, the drunken tirade and threats of using her position while heading the Public Integrity Unit is a special kind of dirtbag DUI.
If Perry gets nailed to the wall, it absolutely must be done legitimately
Exactly, if he gets nailed. It needs to be done in a way so that future asshole politicians have no illusions or misconceptions in regards to what Perry did. It should be absolutely clear that threatening to defund things because someone's political opponents won't resign, will be a career ender, that they won't be able to weasel out of it. I do not want to live in a country where it's A-OK to use dirty tactics, like holding funding hostage, to force out political opponents. I mean jesus fucking christ, we got rid of the spoils system and had checks and balances in the Constitution from the get go, for reasons really good reasons. We sure as fuck didn't have those put in place so people could find shitty ways around them.
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
<-- this is my surprise face
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
<-- this is my surprise face
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
Meh. I'm a belligerent partisan most of the time too. Good enough for me.
I figure the whole thing is going to come down to the alleged aides he sent to "bribe" her to quit, and what they say on the stand. I still think he was trying to get some sort of control over the cancer group investigation, but we'll probably never know that for sure.
The Statesman finished off that argument, I think. The link is on page 14.
0
Options
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
<-- this is my surprise face
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
If anyone is wondering why I said "The more unfairly the republican politician gets convicted, the better", these kinds of cheap insults are the reason.
"The idea that he was concerned about Lehmberg's drunk driving is also fatuous nonsense. Two other Texas DAs were arrested for DUI during Perry's tenure in office and he spoke not a discouraging word about their indiscretions. Kaufman County D.A. Rick Harrison drove the wrong way into traffic and was found guilty of drunk driving in 2009 and in 2003 Terry McEachern, DA of Swisher County, was convicted of a DUI. Perry said nothing. It's probably only coincidental that both of those individuals were Republicans and did not oversee an investigative unit responsible for keeping elected officials honest in the capitol."
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
<-- this is my surprise face
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
If anyone is wondering why I said "The more unfairly the republican politician gets convicted, the better", these kinds of cheap insults are the reason.
I tried to click on this sentence and nothing happened.
Edit: Oh hey! It's that HuffPo article that made a bunch of assumptions and bad arguments and it doesn't have any sourcing or context for the other arrests of people who weren't running a Public Integrity Unit and parrots the now-discredited conspiracy theory argument.
The one that seems to be literally the only published thing supporting the indictment except for the indictment itself.
Abuse of power for the purposes of coercion doesn't become okay because you'd totally for reals not use it for nefarious purposes (this time).
I'm kind of flummoxed by this story, to be honest. It seems like there should've been other ways for Perry to achieve his goal without going for the jugular. How dumb.
Except a certain amount of coercion is considered a normal part of politics. For example, if you don't add this restriction to this the funding in this bill, then I will veto the bill is both a threat, and coercion. The question is whether this particular use of veto power falls into the realm of normal politics or not.
It is not anyone's job to go around threatening rival politicians that, hey, resign from your elected job or I will do [x] to you. Absurd idea.
Richard Nixon, "If you don't resign, we will impeach you and have you removed from office"
One of the constitutionally mandated powers of Congress. Would you like to point out where blackmailing an elected official is part of the Governors remit?
Not to mention that Congress has complete immunity from prosecution for anything they say during an official meeting.
So, they can say whatever they'd like to say. That has no bearing on whether Texas can bar its own employees from blackmailing each other.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
I just read Perry let two DUI DAs slide right through because they actually were I*OK*IYAR in his book.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
<-- this is my surprise face
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
If anyone is wondering why I said "The more unfairly the republican politician gets convicted, the better", these kinds of cheap insults are the reason.
I tried to click on this sentence and nothing happened.
Edit: Oh hey! It's that HuffPo article that made a bunch of assumptions and bad arguments and it doesn't have any sourcing or context for the other arrests of people who weren't running a Public Integrity Unit and parrots the now-discredited conspiracy theory argument. The one that seems to be literally the only published thing supporting the indictment except for the indictment itself.
"Lawful indictment is lawful, an indictment" is just not much of a story, I guess.
So through this interpretation of the statute, it would be legal for Perry to use a threat of a line item veto to defund the PIU in order to have any investigation he didn't like dropped? I mean it's legal to use the line item veto, it's legal to drop an investigation. This strikes me as problematic if true.
It does seem problematic in theory, but also true and also not problematic in practice. We have a good example of this already, when Perry did not issue any threats of any kind while the PIU was trying to destroy Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
I don't see how this is relevant in anyway. Presumably Rick Perry didn't rape and murder a bus full of pediatric cancer patients on their way back from the soup kitchen, that doesn't impact the legality of that action in the future or the legality of any other sexual assaults or homicides.
I figure the whole thing is going to come down to the alleged aides he sent to "bribe" her to quit, and what they say on the stand. I still think he was trying to get some sort of control over the cancer group investigation, but we'll probably never know that for sure.
The Statesman finished off that argument, I think. The link is on page 14.
Yeah, I read it and I still don't think it did..just because she 86'd the idea that any board members were under investigation, doesn't mean that powerful Perry backers weren't worried all that soft money might lead the investigation straight to them.
I just think it's a hell of a lot of political weight to throw around for a DA who's going to be gone at the end of her term anyway. I mean..we'd have to be talking about some incredibly petty and short sighted action on Perry's part here. And it might be that's all it was, but we won't know until the grand jury investigation starts dropping some facts.
0
Options
ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
I feel like I should also point out that he didn't actually make her resign. She refused, he followed through on his veto of state funds appropriation, and someone else picked up the tab.
Irrelevant. If I try to blackmail you, it's illegal even if you refuse to go along with it. The attempt itself is what is against the law.
The attempt is specifically exempted in the law. We have been over this a bunch of times. The last two pages are 100% rehashing the same conversation as the ones before it, including this exact argument.
Agents of government bodies are allowed to try and coerce each other, with their government powers, into doing official things as agents of the government.
"Resign or I'll cut your department's funding" is no more blackmail than "support my idea x or I'll veto your bill y" ,or even "tell the truth to the committee or you're fired". You might not like it morally, but legally it looks almost certain to break Perry's way.
We seriously have talked about this over and over - if you want to make this argument from the "it's illegal" side you've got to do the heavy lifting here and tackle reason why in the statutes.
That wasn't my point. My point was that whatever Perry did that might have been illegal, it does not immediately become legal just because he did a shitty and ineffectual job of it. If it is illegal to threaten to cut someone's funding if they don't step down, it's illegal even they tell you to go fuck yourself. In an analogous manner as the way that blackmail is still illegal even if you suck at it. Or the way that election fraud is still illegal even if you fail to get your candidate to win.
"Well, she called his bluff" is a shitty non-argument, is what I'm saying.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Abuse of power for the purposes of coercion doesn't become okay because you'd totally for reals not use it for nefarious purposes (this time).
I'm kind of flummoxed by this story, to be honest. It seems like there should've been other ways for Perry to achieve his goal without going for the jugular. How dumb.
Except a certain amount of coercion is considered a normal part of politics. For example, if you don't add this restriction to this the funding in this bill, then I will veto the bill is both a threat, and coercion. The question is whether this particular use of veto power falls into the realm of normal politics or not.
It is not anyone's job to go around threatening rival politicians that, hey, resign from your elected job or I will do [x] to you. Absurd idea.
Richard Nixon, "If you don't resign, we will impeach you and have you removed from office"
There was an impeachable offense. Giving somebody the opportunity to resign and maintain a modicum of dignity instead of utter shame and probably prison is completely different from this situation, where the funding to an entirely unrelated ethics program is what was being hung over someone's head.
How is department you are head of unrelated to funding for said department?
Because cutting the funding for an entire department is not related in any way to the actual head of that department?
You can't fuck over people who had nothing to do with this woman's decision to drive drunk, and you certainly can't do it openly. It's petty and possibly illegal, which is up to a jury to decide.
Ok, lets get one thing cleared up. I know I can't speak for all Texans, but for a lot of us this has nothing to do with the drunk driving.
If my local DA did the same thing, then he came out with an honest apology, saying "Look I know I screwed up, I am sorry." I would probably be inclined to say "Hey, we all make mistakes, don't let it happen again."
The problem is the drunk tank videos paint a picture of a very angry and vindictive woman who is willing make threats against people who are just doing their job. They show a person who shouldn't be left in charge of a lego playset, much less any public office of note. We can argue back and forth about whether those videos paint an accurate picture of the woman, but there a plenty of people who feel the attitudes expressed in those videos warrant her removal from office.
Come to think of it, shouldn't she be indicted for using her public office to coerce? If Perry got drunk before he threatened to veto funding for her department, would that make it ok?
Then she should have been removed from the office in a legal way. Nobody in this thread has defended her actions. Her being a terrible person does not give Perry carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to remove her, including possibly illegal coercion.
I am not a big fan of Perry, so put me in the "If it was illegal, I hope Perry has fun in prison" camp, but I was specifically responding to the "You can't fuck over people who had nothing to do with this woman's decision to drive drunk" comment.
Some people in this thread are trying to make out that what she did(drive drunk) was in no way related to her office(investigating corruption), and they are right, but once she made threats to use her official power in a vindictive manner, she made her DUI arrest about her office.
You are conflating two very different things. Nobody in the thread has ever said they had a problem with Perry demanding her resignation. Whether or not she should have resigned or deserved to be removed from office through the proper means is completely irrelevant. The issue at hand is whether or not it was legal for the Governor to use his otherwise constitutionally legal power of the line item veto as a means of punishment/coercion/persuasion to attempt to force an action he otherwise isn't legally capable of.
It basically comes down to:
1) It is legal for Perry to request someone's resignation who's office isn't under his authority.
2) It is legal for Perry to use his power of the line item veto to strike funding for the Public Integrity Unit.
3) It is not legal for Perry to forcibly remove her from office.
4) It is unclear whether it is legal to use #2 as a cudgel to attempt to circumvent #3.
You get the argument slightly wrong... "The issue at hand is whether or not it was legal for the Governor to use his otherwise constitutionally legal power of the line item veto as a means of punishment/coercion/persuasion to attempt to force an action she is capable of."
The governor doesn't have to be capable of taking an action in order to threaten to veto a bill if it's not taken. The target of the threat has to be able to take the action officially in her capacity as an agent of the government. Resignation clearly is an official action, and she has the power to do it.
You get the argument slightly wrong... "The issue at hand is whether or not it was legal for the Governor to use his otherwise constitutionally legal power of the line item veto as a means of punishment/coercion/persuasion to attempt to force an action which is an official duty of her office."
You also are ignoring that law is not only the statutory construction, but also to common construction. Which includes the types of arguments we are having right now. Like "Do we think its OK for a governor to force political opponents to resign or deal lasting damage to the state" and the answer to that is "no" and because the answer to that is "no" the answer to the first "is it legal" question significantly changes.
Resigning is not an official duty of her office. DA's do not walk into office and then are expected to start resigning day one. We have pretty fucking clear case law which explicitly says so (in that we have a governor found guilty under this law for this same thing!). We also have the intent of the legislature because they modified the law explicitly to the version which its at today (which fixes the "unconstitutionally broad" issues because besides broadness is a specificity issue and changing the wording makes the specificity explicit). And on top of all that we have the pretty fucking obvious issue of "its not ok for the governor to hold departments hostage to force elected officials to resign."
Abuse of power for the purposes of coercion doesn't become okay because you'd totally for reals not use it for nefarious purposes (this time).
I'm kind of flummoxed by this story, to be honest. It seems like there should've been other ways for Perry to achieve his goal without going for the jugular. How dumb.
Except a certain amount of coercion is considered a normal part of politics. For example, if you don't add this restriction to this the funding in this bill, then I will veto the bill is both a threat, and coercion. The question is whether this particular use of veto power falls into the realm of normal politics or not.
It is not anyone's job to go around threatening rival politicians that, hey, resign from your elected job or I will do [x] to you. Absurd idea.
Richard Nixon, "If you don't resign, we will impeach you and have you removed from office"
There was an impeachable offense. Giving somebody the opportunity to resign and maintain a modicum of dignity instead of utter shame and probably prison is completely different from this situation, where the funding to an entirely unrelated ethics program is what was being hung over someone's head.
How is department you are head of unrelated to funding for said department?
Because cutting the funding for an entire department is not related in any way to the actual head of that department?
You can't fuck over people who had nothing to do with this woman's decision to drive drunk, and you certainly can't do it openly. It's petty and possibly illegal, which is up to a jury to decide.
Ok, lets get one thing cleared up. I know I can't speak for all Texans, but for a lot of us this has nothing to do with the drunk driving.
If my local DA did the same thing, then he came out with an honest apology, saying "Look I know I screwed up, I am sorry." I would probably be inclined to say "Hey, we all make mistakes, don't let it happen again."
The problem is the drunk tank videos paint a picture of a very angry and vindictive woman who is willing make threats against people who are just doing their job. They show a person who shouldn't be left in charge of a lego playset, much less any public office of note. We can argue back and forth about whether those videos paint an accurate picture of the woman, but there a plenty of people who feel the attitudes expressed in those videos warrant her removal from office.
Come to think of it, shouldn't she be indicted for using her public office to coerce? If Perry got drunk before he threatened to veto funding for her department, would that make it ok?
She almost was. The Grand Jury decided not to indict/remove her from office stating that her misconduct did not rise to the level of official misconduct. They likely construed that drunken threats weren't really threats and that she wasn't using/didn't use the power of her office in any untoward manner.
I figure the whole thing is going to come down to the alleged aides he sent to "bribe" her to quit, and what they say on the stand. I still think he was trying to get some sort of control over the cancer group investigation, but we'll probably never know that for sure.
The Statesman finished off that argument, I think. The link is on page 14.
Yeah, I read it and I still don't think it did..just because she 86'd the idea that any board members were under investigation, doesn't mean that powerful Perry backers weren't worried all that soft money might lead the investigation straight to them.
I just think it's a hell of a lot of political weight to throw around for a DA who's going to be gone at the end of her term anyway. I mean..we'd have to be talking about some incredibly petty and short sighted action on Perry's part here. And it might be that's all it was, but we won't know until the grand jury investigation starts dropping some facts.
She won her primary I think, and will be back in 2014.
We don't have the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury to speculate on due to the gag order. But, with the members of the Grand Jury saying that there is a lot more than 'nothing' there, I'm not going to make any absolute statements either way about Perry's guilt. However, I'm not aware of anywhere in Texas's statutes where the governor is specifically allowed to use his official powers to coerce the resignation of his political opponents in this manner.
Can you cite this specific law?
If the prevailing interpretation of the law is correct (a point not necessarily conceded), it seems that as long as both actions are legal in a vacuum, than it's legal. Perry's use of a line item veto to cut the funding for the PIU is his legal right. It is Lehmberg's legal right to resign. So that makes Perry's coercion legal. It's a special exemption written for political office holders. The action (veto) is legal so the only way for it's use to be illegal is by using the threat of it to attempt to force someone to do something illegal. It is treated no differently that an Perry threatening "You pass funding for my pet project, or I'll veto funding for your's."
"Legal action to force legal action is legal" is laughably stupid. Giving someone money is legal, not publishing pictures is legal, but that does not make blackmail legal.
We don't have the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury to speculate on due to the gag order. But, with the members of the Grand Jury saying that there is a lot more than 'nothing' there, I'm not going to make any absolute statements either way about Perry's guilt. However, I'm not aware of anywhere in Texas's statutes where the governor is specifically allowed to use his official powers to coerce the resignation of his political opponents in this manner.
Can you cite this specific law?
If the prevailing interpretation of the law is correct (a point not necessarily conceded), it seems that as long as both actions are legal in a vacuum, than it's legal. Perry's use of a line item veto to cut the funding for the PIU is his legal right. It is Lehmberg's legal right to resign. So that makes Perry's coercion legal. It's a special exemption written for political office holders. The action (veto) is legal so the only way for it's use to be illegal is by using the threat of it to attempt to force someone to do something illegal. It is treated no differently that an Perry threatening "You pass funding for my pet project, or I'll veto funding for your's."
"Legal action to force legal action is legal" is laughably stupid. Giving someone money is legal, not publishing pictures is legal, but that does not make blackmail legal.
Your construction is an oversimplification that removes all the important details necessary to show why your example is laughably stupid.
+1
Options
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
And she was the only person on the grand jury? And you can imply from what she's written her entire thought process on that grand jury of which you were not a party to and didn't know about until its decision was reached?
There is also a bit of a fucked up thing to track down a member of a grand jury and outing their identity purely to claim it was a partisan affair. I would wonder if thats against the law, but since its texas probably not.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
To me, if you read the stuff she freely posted and contributed to, there seems to be a clear conflict of interest.
How? She wrote about being an active democrat, exactly what does that have to do with the Perry grand jury case?
Perry is a republican, when you are serving on a grand jury they ask you if you are of the opposite party of the person who you're currently investigating and if you are, you are disqualified.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I mean..this thread has been peppered with the claims of high ranking liberals/democrats who think the indictment is bad. And their claims have been trumpeted as "SEE even scurrilous liberals think it's bad." But not this one liberal, she was clearly out for his hide because she was excited at a democratic event.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
There's a difference between being on a grand jury to charge famed Hollywood director Justin Lin with a crime and you've only seen his F&F movies, it's another to be on the grand jury while also an active member of the Tokyo Drift fan club where at the same time of the investigation you freely go to see his top stunt driver for the movie speak after he came to testify to you about where Lin was on a given night, and you constantly talk about how great Tokyo Drift was on facebook.
I am highly skeptical that the latter would be as objective as others here seem to think they would be.
And yeah I brought the original Fast & Furious into a politics debate so what indict me.
Posts
I would argue that by that point, DeLay was seen as a liability more than an asset - he had no compunction trampling people in his quest for power, and had built up a nice list of enemies on both sides of the aisle. Throwing him to the wolves made a good amount of political sense.
In comparison, the current investigation could very well cripple Abbott as Governor, which has bigger ramifications for both the party and for Perry.
Isn't that the entire point of this thread, though? If we can't discuss how we think the outcome will be, what's left?
You're the only person in this conversation?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Sorry, since you were responding directly to me I thought it was directed at me.
What's the utter opposite of surprise? Now I don't care how dumb, fatuous or flimsy the charges are - the more unfairly and cheaply he gets destroyed, the better.
NO
If Perry gets nailed to the wall, it absolutely must be done legitimately
Those DA's probably weren't caught on video being belligerent and throwing around the weight of their office. I don't get why Perry didn't just vocalize his concern, encourage the voters to recall her and leave it that, it's not like she was going to win re-election, in fact she had agreed not to run.
I figure the whole thing is going to come down to the alleged aides he sent to "bribe" her to quit, and what they say on the stand. I still think he was trying to get some sort of control over the cancer group investigation, but we'll probably never know that for sure.
*shudders* I'm gonna go take a shower.
Goumindong had an article a page back or so on how this will be a guilty verdict: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/why-rick-perry-will-be-co_b_5686664.html
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Exactly, if he gets nailed. It needs to be done in a way so that future asshole politicians have no illusions or misconceptions in regards to what Perry did. It should be absolutely clear that threatening to defund things because someone's political opponents won't resign, will be a career ender, that they won't be able to weasel out of it. I do not want to live in a country where it's A-OK to use dirty tactics, like holding funding hostage, to force out political opponents. I mean jesus fucking christ, we got rid of the spoils system and had checks and balances in the Constitution from the get go, for reasons really good reasons. We sure as fuck didn't have those put in place so people could find shitty ways around them.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Interesting. Literally the first and only one I've seen saying that so far, outside of some folks in this thread.
Edit: meh.
Well, I guess at least one person had to take the contrarian position.
Edit: misunderstood this, nm.
There is a video posted on the first page that has her threatening the deputies processing her with jail time.
Would love a link to that. You know, instead of taking the word of the one of the most belligerent partisans on the site.
Meh. I'm a belligerent partisan most of the time too. Good enough for me.
The Statesman finished off that argument, I think. The link is on page 14.
If anyone is wondering why I said "The more unfairly the republican politician gets convicted, the better", these kinds of cheap insults are the reason.
"The idea that he was concerned about Lehmberg's drunk driving is also fatuous nonsense. Two other Texas DAs were arrested for DUI during Perry's tenure in office and he spoke not a discouraging word about their indiscretions. Kaufman County D.A. Rick Harrison drove the wrong way into traffic and was found guilty of drunk driving in 2009 and in 2003 Terry McEachern, DA of Swisher County, was convicted of a DUI. Perry said nothing. It's probably only coincidental that both of those individuals were Republicans and did not oversee an investigative unit responsible for keeping elected officials honest in the capitol."
Find the link yourself.
I tried to click on this sentence and nothing happened.
Edit: Oh hey! It's that HuffPo article that made a bunch of assumptions and bad arguments and it doesn't have any sourcing or context for the other arrests of people who weren't running a Public Integrity Unit and parrots the now-discredited conspiracy theory argument.
The one that seems to be literally the only published thing supporting the indictment except for the indictment itself.
Not to mention that Congress has complete immunity from prosecution for anything they say during an official meeting.
So, they can say whatever they'd like to say. That has no bearing on whether Texas can bar its own employees from blackmailing each other.
"Lawful indictment is lawful, an indictment" is just not much of a story, I guess.
Any ways, if you want corroboration, http://progresstexas.org/blog/rick-perrys-inconvenient-history-republicans-charged-drunk-driving
I don't see how this is relevant in anyway. Presumably Rick Perry didn't rape and murder a bus full of pediatric cancer patients on their way back from the soup kitchen, that doesn't impact the legality of that action in the future or the legality of any other sexual assaults or homicides.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Yeah, I read it and I still don't think it did..just because she 86'd the idea that any board members were under investigation, doesn't mean that powerful Perry backers weren't worried all that soft money might lead the investigation straight to them.
I just think it's a hell of a lot of political weight to throw around for a DA who's going to be gone at the end of her term anyway. I mean..we'd have to be talking about some incredibly petty and short sighted action on Perry's part here. And it might be that's all it was, but we won't know until the grand jury investigation starts dropping some facts.
That wasn't my point. My point was that whatever Perry did that might have been illegal, it does not immediately become legal just because he did a shitty and ineffectual job of it. If it is illegal to threaten to cut someone's funding if they don't step down, it's illegal even they tell you to go fuck yourself. In an analogous manner as the way that blackmail is still illegal even if you suck at it. Or the way that election fraud is still illegal even if you fail to get your candidate to win.
"Well, she called his bluff" is a shitty non-argument, is what I'm saying.
You get the argument slightly wrong... "The issue at hand is whether or not it was legal for the Governor to use his otherwise constitutionally legal power of the line item veto as a means of punishment/coercion/persuasion to attempt to force an action which is an official duty of her office."
You also are ignoring that law is not only the statutory construction, but also to common construction. Which includes the types of arguments we are having right now. Like "Do we think its OK for a governor to force political opponents to resign or deal lasting damage to the state" and the answer to that is "no" and because the answer to that is "no" the answer to the first "is it legal" question significantly changes.
Resigning is not an official duty of her office. DA's do not walk into office and then are expected to start resigning day one. We have pretty fucking clear case law which explicitly says so (in that we have a governor found guilty under this law for this same thing!). We also have the intent of the legislature because they modified the law explicitly to the version which its at today (which fixes the "unconstitutionally broad" issues because besides broadness is a specificity issue and changing the wording makes the specificity explicit). And on top of all that we have the pretty fucking obvious issue of "its not ok for the governor to hold departments hostage to force elected officials to resign."
She almost was. The Grand Jury decided not to indict/remove her from office stating that her misconduct did not rise to the level of official misconduct. They likely construed that drunken threats weren't really threats and that she wasn't using/didn't use the power of her office in any untoward manner.
She won her primary I think, and will be back in 2014.
Your construction is an oversimplification that removes all the important details necessary to show why your example is laughably stupid.
pleasepaypreacher.net
There is also a bit of a fucked up thing to track down a member of a grand jury and outing their identity purely to claim it was a partisan affair. I would wonder if thats against the law, but since its texas probably not.
pleasepaypreacher.net
How? She wrote about being an active democrat, exactly what does that have to do with the Perry grand jury case?
Perry is a republican, when you are serving on a grand jury they ask you if you are of the opposite party of the person who you're currently investigating and if you are, you are disqualified.
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
I am highly skeptical that the latter would be as objective as others here seem to think they would be.
And yeah I brought the original Fast & Furious into a politics debate so what indict me.