[STATESMAN] The special prosecutor who secured two felony abuse of power indictments against Gov. Rick Perry is facing his own legal problems after a decision by Texas' highest criminal court to renew a contempt of court case against him.
Prosecutors filed a contempt of court motion against San Antonio-based attorney Michael McCrum in January, after a separate case the previous fall. In it, one of McCrum's clients was convicted of manslaughter for driving his car the wrong-way down an interstate with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, and sparking a head-on crash that killed two men.
McCrum was accused of telling his client's former addiction counselor to "get lost for a while" and not be available to testify at the trial's punishment phase.
That case and the subsequent contempt complaint came months after April 2013, when McCrum was first named special prosecutor in the case against Perry.
A contempt hearing began, but McCrum's attorneys challenged it, arguing that prosecutors in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, missed the deadline to bring a complaint against him. That sent the matter to Texas' 4th Court of Appeals, which in March sided with McCrum and found the deadline had in fact expired.
But a two-page ruling Wednesday from the 9-judge, Republican-controlled Court of Criminal Appeals directed the appellate court to vacate its order.
That order gives the lower court 30 days to vacate its ruling, but it wasn't immediately clear when the contempt proceedings against McCrum would resume. Messages for Bexar County district attorneys were not returned Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2014 00:00 ||
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[TIMESDISPATCH] The IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... , which can seem to keep track of mortgage interest payments, mileage reimbursement allowances and tractor depreciation schedules for millions of American families and businesses, can't seem to find its own archives with a flashlight.
First the agency lost whole troves of emails from disgraced former apparatchik Lois Lerner ...the former head of the IRS Exempt Unit. She is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws and a member of the Massachussetts bar. She was held in contempt of Congress for her role in the IRS targeting of regime political enemies and refusing to testify. The dog ate her computer's hard drive with all her emails on it... -- emails that would have shed light on her role in the ongoing scandal over the targeting of conservative groups by the agency. Then, on a recent Friday afternoon (of course), the agency admitted it also could not find emails from several others connected to the scandal.
The disappearances are extremely convenient -- especially because the IRS is being treated under a different standard than the one it uses to treats taxpayers. Lerner and others will face no serious legal consequences without hard evidence of guilt -- evidence that has now vanished into the ether. But taxpayers who find themselves in a dispute with the IRS are presumed to be in the wrong until they can produce hard evidence to prove otherwise.
The IRS saga fits a disturbing pattern in which Democratic- and liberal-leaning authorities have abused ostensibly neutral laws and procedures to harass, intimidate and silence conservatives and Republicans. Other recent examples include the trumped-up charges against Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the gross misuse of campaign-finance laws to keep an independent conservative group in Wisconsin from exercising its First Amendment right to speak about politics.
It's not unusual to see Third World autocrats perverting the machinery of the administrative state to criminalize differences of political viewpoint, then trying lamely to cover their tracks. Over the past six or so years the American public has seen a lot of that nefarious behavior as well. It's a dismaying trend -- and one that has to stop.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Other recent examples include the trumped-up charges against Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the gross misuse of campaign-finance laws to keep an independent conservative group in Wisconsin from exercising its First Amendment right to speak about politics.....
Federal abolishment of States rights. The Peninsula campaign, tunneling at Petersburg, the shelling of Richmond. It simply never stops.
#2
The IRS had 93,337 employees by a 2009 est. The number is probably higher today with the AFA. Much corruption has occurred during this administration. The agency has been wielded as a political tool to punish opponents. Being bloated and used as a political tool are good reasons to abolish the agency. The 16th Amendment would most likely have to be repealed. That would be an uphill battle. What to replace it with? Fair tax, flat tax, sales tax?
#2
Abortion Barbie stays on teleprompter message despite agreed-upon rules. An atrocious human being.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2014 8:19 Comments ||
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#3
Interesting. Yesterday's Dallas Morning News article had much of the same text on that subject, and noted Abbott 'stayed focused' but didn't mention Wendy got so ... over-focused.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2014 9:25 Comments ||
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#4
The usual Donk strategy. When things are not going well and you can't intelligently debate the issues, talk louder and dominate the podium.
#5
A page from the Joe Biden book on debate strategy. Mods should have the ability to cut the mike. In fact, mikes should be cut as a matter of routine on both candidates when it's not their turn to speak.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/21/2014 17:04 Comments ||
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[BREITBART] What happens is absolute corruption. I have to admit that generally there are "agreements" behind closed doors between the consultants or research centers and the government offices before the studies are conducted. They fill out forms with copied information (and sometimes badly copied), lies or half truths in order to divert attention from the real project while at the same time complying with requirements on paper. Unfortunately, consultants sometimes take advantage of high unemployment and hire inexperienced people or unemployed career professionals without proper titles. Sometimes the consultants even coerce them into modifying the data.
Research centers, pressured by a lack of funding, accept these studies. It is well known that scientists recognized by CONACYT (National Counsel on Science and Technology) accept gifts from these companies, given that they need money to buy equipment for their laboratories and to fill their pocketbooks to maintain their lifestyles. This is the extent of the corruption. Upon reviewing these studies, it is clear that the findings are trash, sometimes even directly copied from other sources online. These studies tend to focus on the "benefits of the project" and do not include rigorous analysis.
The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) does follow-up to the studies, but everything can be negotiated. The bureaucrats have the last word.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
We know what you are, we're just negotiating the price.
#4
The environmental protest is going on in NYC. Full of the usual Jesus drive a Prius nut jobs. But what I find amazing is the socialist party has taken this event over. They are blaming capitalism for all the environment woes. Socialism is the answer. As I understand it, socialist countries are among the most polluted and environmentally destroyed places on earth. It just reminds me of the mob mentality and the old axiom that stupidity has no limits!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/21/2014 18:30 Comments ||
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[THEHILL] The military is growing more "sensitive" under the B.O. regime, Pentagon observers say, by relaxing long-standing restrictions on soldiers' religious and personal liberties.
The efforts by the Defense Department to adapt to cultural change go beyond the moves to end the controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and allow women in combat.
In recent weeks, the Pentagon has backed off controversial hairstyle regulations that critics said discriminated against black women and made the phrase "so help me god" optional in the oath for airmen. Earlier this year, the military loosened its rules for soldiers who want to wear turbans or grow religious beards and provided exemptions for having tattoos and piercings.
"We want to make sure we're not offending people," a DOD official told The Hill.
The military seems to be shifting away from many of the more rigid requirements that once defined service in the armed forces in order to keep pace with cultural changes, experts say.
"If I had told you 10 years ago we were going to drop the ban on gays or that women would get into the special forces, you'd say, 'No way,' " said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, who is a former assistant secretary of defense.
"Well, that's happening," he said.
Mackenzie Eaglen, who formerly worked at the Pentagon and is now a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the recent changes might be "slightly more political in nature."
"This president has instituted an impressive array of social change in the Defense Department during his six years," Eaglen said.
She pointed out the Pentagon "seems to be more sensitive to political correctness" these days.
"They're much quicker to respond to things that offend service members," Eaglen said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"We want to make sure we're not offending people," a DOD official told The Hill.
Given that your mission is to close with and destroy the enemy with extreme malice, you have a severe case of schizophrenia. Task Force Smith to the courtesy phone. Insert George Santayana quote here.
#3
Linguistically speaking we no longer fight 'wars'. The PC folks at the White House Press Office Ministry of Truth have struck it from the official vocabulary.
#5
Fear the day, Amerika, when most or all of the USDOD is "unionized" + effec a strategic
"defensive force" where the country can't go to war widout the permission of the AFL-CIO + those foreign Govts. now in formal control of the US domestic economy.
E.G. CHINA DAILY > CHINA NOW TRULY OWNS CANADA, NEW [Sino-Canuck] TREATY ALLOWS CHINA TO FORCE CANADA TO CHANGE ITS LAWS.
Iff saidsame new law(s) or regulations interfere or block Chinese investments into Canada.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[STATESMAN] The special prosecutor who secured two felony abuse of power indictments against Gov. Rick Perry is facing his own legal problems after a decision by Texas' highest criminal court to renew a contempt of court case against him.
...the former head of the IRS Exempt Unit. She is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws and a member of the Massachussetts bar. She was held in contempt of Congress for her role in the IRS targeting of regime political enemies and refusing to testify. The dog ate her computer's hard drive with all her emails on it...
[THEHILL] The military is growing more "sensitive" under the 
