you probably already know what I am referring to. Or maybe you are blissfully unaware; that will change in about an hour. In either case, here's some important information you need to keep in mind about Travis County DA, Ronie Earle:
While Earle is an elected Democrat, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, a June 17 editorial in the Houston Chronicle commended his work: "During his long tenure, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has prosecuted many more Democratic officials than Republicans. The record does not support allegations that Earle is prone to partisan witch hunts." This assertion supports Earle's own claim about his record; a March 6 article in the El Paso Times reported: "Earle says local prosecution is fundamental and points out that 11 of the 15 politicians he has prosecuted over the years were Democrats."
The relevance of this will be made clear soon enough. I think I need to ignore politics for about a week and batten down the hatches again. Thermonuclear war ahead.
UPDATE: See what I mean?
Statement from the Office of the Majority Leader
(WASHINGTON) - Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) today released the following statement regarding today's announcement by the Travis County (TX) District Attorney's Office:
"These charges have no basis in the facts or the law. This is just another example of Ronnie Earle misusing his office for partisan vendettas. Despite the clearly political agenda of this prosecutor, Congressman DeLay has cooperated with officials throughout the entire process. Even in the last two weeks, Ronnie Earle himself had acknowledged publicly that Mr. DeLay was not a target of his investigation. However, as with many of Ronnie Earle's previous partisan investigations, Ronnie Earle refused to let the facts or the law get in the way of his partisan desire to indict a political foe.
This purely political investigation has been marked by illegal grand jury leaks, a fundraising speech by Ronnie Earle for Texas Democrats that inappropriately focused on the investigation, misuse of his office for partisan purposes, and extortion of money for Earle's pet projects from corporations in exchange for dismissing indictments he brought against them. Ronnie Earle's previous misuse of his office has resulted in failed prosecutions and we trust his partisan grandstanding will strike out again, as it should.
Ronnie Earle's 1994 indictment against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was quickly dismissed and his charges in the 1980s against former Attorney General Jim Mattox-another political foe of Earle-fell apart at trial.
We regret the people of Texas will once again have their taxpayer dollars wasted on Ronnie Earle's pursuit of headlines and political paybacks. Ronnie Earle began this investigation in 2002, after the Democrat Party lost the Texas state legislature to Republicans. For three years and through numerous grand juries, Ronnie Earle has tried to manufacture charges against Republicans involved in winning those elections using arcane statutes never before utilized in a case in the state. This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat."
If the charges are true, DeLay should suffer the consequences. If not, he'll suffer them anyway because he's already being condemned as it it is.
The joke is you can indict a ham sandwich. They say he accepted an illegal ~$155k donation. Show me the receipts, prove the intent, and I'd be more than happy to have the man in jail. But so far both sides are claiming victory with right already poo-poo'ing it as a partisan attack.
This is just going to be plain nasty with very, very little facts shaping people's opinions.
Yours,
Wince
There has long been a deep schism in the Texas Democratic party. It's not so evident anymore, since many of the conservatives/moderates went ahead and became Republicans (like my entire family did).
So far as I'm concerned, anyone who's been in congress more than 20 years, or in a leadership position in either party for more than ten is automatically suspect anyway.
(Yes, I'm a supporter of term limits. Too bad it appears to be a lost cause.)
I'm with Dean on the term limits. If the President (elected by EVERYONE) can't serve as many as the people want, why the hell should Congress be able to serve 'til they decide to quit. I swat mosquitos all the time, and most Congressmen aren't much different from the bloodsucking flyers...other than they don't fly without help.
As for the editorial, I've seen too many that are full of outright lies to trust this one. Especially with this
A spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas called Earle's investigation frivolous. That charge is rebutted by the impressive legal talent hired to represent the targets of the probe.
What does the talent of the defense have to do with the validity of the charges? If you think you have a politically motivated foe you would assume he (she) won't play nice so you get the best defense you can find to keep the prosecution honest.
You also get the best talent you can find to defend yourself against real charges.
So the talent of the defense is immaterial to the validity of the charges.
I do look forward to the knowing looks, innuendo and aggreived air of the MSM as they report on this./sarcasm>
I don't know if Earle is politically motivated or not, but I do suspect he's grandstanding. DeLay is stepping down temporarily isn't an admission of anything. It's just to avoid giving the Democrats an even bigger stick. Either way, DeLay will forver have "once indicted" stuck on his name, and Earle risks nothing if the indictment fails.
My understanding is that Earle has a very strong case that this was money laundering in violation of the Texas election law. What is not clear is whether he has any real evidence that Tom Delay was involved in the money laundering. Certainly, Tom Delay helped found the committee and he could have used his influence with the national Republican party to arrange the money laundering, but I have not seen any evidence of this. Unless someone is willing to say that Delay told them to do this or there is something in writing that links Delay to the money laundering, I don’t see how Earle is going to get a conviction on Delay.
The other argument is whether the Texas law is constitutional. I believe that so far the Texas courts have ruled that it is, but I’m sure that will get appealed to the US Supreme Court eventually.
However, I am with you on not being certain how Delay is connected. The indictment doesn't even say what Delay is being charged with. It only appears to say that Delay has waived his right to the statute of limitations with respect to this incident.
Tom Delay, as a representative in Texas, had an interest in that issue, and used his power and influence to help undue the gerrymandering that had been going on for 20 years to keep an disproportionate number in power. Texas Democrats were and are irate at their inability to continue gaming the system.
Ronnie Earle has been dogging Delay ever since. Like a police car tracking you in traffic, he was waiting for the proverbial "changing lanes without signaling," or "rolling through a stop sign" moment so he could "hit the lights and pull over" Delay.
But unlike traffic court, Earle has to prove his case against Delay. The "officer" won't be given the benefit of the doubt in this case. It is possible that Earle, after three long years of tracking Delay's every move, really did catch Delay doing something that is technically illegal. But even if that is true, it doesn't mean that it is not trivial.
Getting a ticket for changing lanes without signalling, or not signalling more than 100 feet before a stop sign is evidence of a pedantic officer. Those tickets, while technically correct, are trivial. But you still have to pay the fine.
The charges can be both trivial AND true - unfortunately.
I may be wrong but as I understand it the corporation money was funneled through a PAC to the RNC, in which case whether the amounts received by the TX legislators were the same or not, there is no foul.
Dean I am with you on term limits and I would add age limits to it.
Well, perhaps this will work out like the Trent Lott affair...they replaced him with the uber-clean Frist...oh, wait...belay that
Ah, well, then maybe is will work out the way Reid has been so much more effective than Daschale...hmmm...
You know, the leadership pretty much sucks, wich has led to the general impotence of both parties in both houses. Though, arguably, due to parlimentary rules, the majority parties in the house always have a structural advantage and will be more successful more or less by default...hence the 'loss' of Delay is meaningless to the Republicans.
And given the Democartic hyperbole on soooo many issues, in the even that Delay has really done something wrong, I don't think they'll get the outrage. In fact, by not allowing the rule change, if Delay is convicted, they lost the chance to have the Majority leader do a perp walk. Now he'll just be a back bencher, regarldess of how much the Media Screams.
Just heard Delay state (with a chuckle) the reason for that is because most of the indictments are from back when the state was all Democratic, when the charges were liberal Democrats vs conservative Democrats.
Ronnie Earle isn't a partisan. He's a little, vindictive man who goes after any politician who pisses him off. (Ask some of the Democrats he's gone after what they think of him.) He could care less what party they are members of.
And his argument about indicting more Democrats than Republicans is silly. There are no Republicans in Austin. It's the bastion of la la land in Texas, a little pond of liberals surrounded by an ocean of conservatives.
This was an obvious end run around the corporate contribution rule. The more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run -- or, to be more precise, one so blatantly illegal that it amounts to a criminal felony rather than a civil violation.
Of course they end up with the need for the GOP to get rid of Delay. But then, they've been advocating that for years. They like their Republicans weak and ineffectual.
I'm a Texan and I'd say just about every politician in the state (there are a few relatively clean ones) have rolled in the pig pen. The only question is how long and with whom.
I personally don't like delay's style and I think he's bad for the GOP because he has the personal charisma of a pit bull and he seems to like a leadership style that I find off-putting.
But Earle is probably (from accounts I've read) as much of a jerk as Delay. They deserve each other, in other words, and we don't deserve either of them.
And the comment about the prosecution of democrats because Texas was an all-democratic state is probably true. I still remember when Bill Clements became the first Republican governor since reconstruction. In SE Texas, the county I used to work in didn't even run candidates for local offices.
Yep. But the Republicans just replaced Democratic gerrymandering with Republican gerrymandering. Delay's party won, but our state still comes out a loser.
It got raised to a high art form by Democrats in California in the 1980s when they started using computers to carve up districts that looked like modern art pieces, and it's spread to other states since.
Surprisingly, despite all this, congress usually winds up looking fairly representative of the country as a whole anyway.