Dershowitz 'Outraged' by Perry Indictment By Sandy Fitzgerald ... <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Unless he was demonstrably trying to scrap the ethics unit for other than his stated reason, Perry indictment seems pretty sketchy.</p>— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/statuses/500634429367533568">August 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> And Prince tweeted that the indictment "seems nuts": <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Have to say Perry indictment seems nuts. Gov has constitutional power to veto. Gov uses power. Grand jury indicts bc they don't like reason?</p>— jonathan prince (@jonathanmprince) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanmprince/statuses/500638035474907136">August 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/dershowitz-perry-indictment-outraged/2014/08/16/id/589179/
1. I can understand the argument that you should keep criminal indictments out of elected offices because they can so easily be used to undermine the vote of the electorate. But, there is also such a thing as political corruption for which letting voters decide is simply inadequate. I significant and willful abuse of power should be answered with an indictment. The ballotbox is not terribly effective at controlling such things. 2. What the lady did was not terribly noble. If someone wants to indict her, I'm fine with that. Whether she's indicted or not won't have any bearing on Perry though. 3. Perry should have publicly asked her to re-sign. He could have used the bully pulpit to embarass her and the democratic party into resigning. He could have used his prominence to bring the public eye onto her behavior to assure the ruin of her poltical career. That'd been fine. Maybe even leadership. Blackmailing her unit by witholding funds is inappropriate though.
The idea that he was concerned about Lehmberg's drunk driving is also fatuous nonsense. Two other Texas D.A.s 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, D.A. 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. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-m...e-co_b_5686664.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 giddy falls in faint
Which is irrelevant to anything. But good job running away from the actual topic after learning that everything you posted is nonsense. If anything, your statement should point out that this thing might not be about left/right politics. Dershowitz, like Axelrod and others, are focused on the veto and his right to veto. The problem there is that the veto was completely legal and no one has alleged otherwise - it's a complete strawman or misunderstanding of the case. There's a reason why Perry is pounding on that topic instead of what the indictment is actually about. The political motivation charges also don't fit the facts, since the independent special prosecutor was selected by a Perry judge and has a GOP background, and is widely supported by both parties. Democrats have nothing at all to do with bringing up the indictment. It's just a kneejerk reaction by people uninteresting in learning the facts.
Nothing I've posted is non-sense; it is non-Major. If you keep having to tell me what you've proven to me, you've proven no-thing! Not sure that one guy makes an action bi-partisan. I'm more impressed that a flock of liberals don't get behind the indictment. What is the name of the left-leaning political action group that pushed for this charge? I can't find it. Perry lost confidence in the woman, so he didn't want to turn millions of dollars over to her management. Wasn't he public about that? That's the impression I've gotten from reading. If he had done all this behind closed doors, you might have a different story.
The Wall Street Journal Texas Chainsaw Prosecution Criminalizing politics hits a new low with the Rick Perry indictment. Link: http://online.wsj.com/articles/texas-chainsaw-prosecution-1408318131?mod=trending_now_1 In addition to the above article, my opinion is that this whole witch hunt is going to backfire badly for the Texas Democratic Party. Any Democrat who is wise will quickly move away from this foolish indictment.
Corruption is serious business. Imo, corruption is the Third World is the thing that keeps them third. We don't want it here. In terms of governance, I don't want public servants undermining the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. Too many counterarguments look at this as politics instead of governance. But, the real problem here is a principal-agent problem because the county elects the official, but the official's work is funded by the State. If Travis County wants a Public Integrity Unit, they should also be the ones paying for it. That shields them from denial of funds by the state legislature or the governor. It also protects all the other counties from having to pay for the work of this Unit without having any say in what they do. Of course, if funding really did fall on Travis County, it wouldn't exist. The proper structure then would be a statewide elected office (or commission of several officials) that has powers of its own enumerated in the state constitution along with some kind of firewall to protect it from the governor and the state legislature. That solution has problems of its own because it'll be filled by people of the dominant party in the whole state, and they will have incentives to not pursue corruption of people within their own party. But at least it would have it's own standing and own money and would be a legitimate state organ that represented the whole state. You could also make it an appointed office under the State Attorney General, but the incentive to cover-up corruption would probably be even stronger there. Having a rogue county unit might actually be the most practical real-life solution to corruption despite the structural problems with doing it that result in tussles like these. So, I'm fine with carrying on with the indictment. It's not a conviction in itself, but it might be the only deterrent to throwing your weight around in Austin. It's messy and ugly but all the alternatives are as well.
I am not all up-to-speed on Texas politics......so if anyone can comment on the accuracy of this article? http://www.texastotheworld.com/
It isn't a "witch hunt" and it is certainly not a foolish action by Public Integrity Unit. Perry broke the law. As for the PIU being partisan, do a google search of Democrats that have been charged by the Public Integrity Unit. You will be surprised.
New York Times: Pursuit of Rick Perry 'overzealous prosecution' Deckard, the fact is that Perry is not guilty based on the evidence given. Your hatred of his politics is your entire argument for his guilt. Right now, the evidence points to this being an unfounded indictment. Unless there is more evidence against Perry that has not been released to the public, he will be vindicated.
Don't understand this argument at all. This case seems to be entirely about interpretation of the law and not at all about evidence. The evidence is that he threatened to veto funding if she did not resign and then, when she didn't resign, vetoed the funding. I'm not aware of any dispute of the evidence, and I don't think Perry is denying the alleged actions. Maybe there's a little a little evidentiary gray area around what his real motivation was -- was it for the public interest to get convicted drunken drivers out of office, or was it to hamstring a political enemy -- but I'm not sure his motive matters. The argument, as far as I can tell, is whether witholding funding because a resignation is not tendered is appropriate or not. There's probably all sorts of byzantine case law to wade through for precedent of what is and is not allowable for interpreting the law. But, I don't see how evidence makes much of a difference.
I think motive is pretty much all that matters here, so long as he can say he vetoed their funding for the public interest I think he's in the clear. They'd pretty much have to prove that his motive for denying the funding was for another reason to have a case.
JV, we don't always agree down here, but I have to say that I love it when you're on my side of a discussion. -
With an indictment, you get subpoena powers, then you can look around for incriminating emails and such. Remember the crux of this is that Mr. Perry was defunding a group that was in an active investigation of him and his cronies. If there is evidence to be found where he discusses the defunding as serving a political purpose, he's toast. And these guys aren't rocketsurgeons, they are the petty vindictive and self righteous politicians, so there is probably something out there. It's just too convenient for them not to get gleeful over. Remember from above, two other Republican DA's not investigating government corruption were indicted on DUI's in Texas and did not receive the same attention of the Governor.
I wonder if some hard drives will conveniently crash and be exported out of the country....I hear that can happen when people are looking for E-mails
That would be a problem for candidate perry. * Grand Juries do have subpoena powers, but they only investigate far enough to get an indictment. The real burden of proof investigations don't start until after the indictment ///not a lawyer
