Do you have a link to this education story? Was it a case of forcing the resignation of people that they didn't have the responsibility to force a resignation over? In that case I'm probably not going to agree. Even if it is a conservative GASP

Here you go. It most likely has zero chance of ending in a conviction and as the law likely doesn't cover what Perry did. (Volokh is a very reputable non-partisan legal analyst).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...oercion-count/

You're smoking weaponized crack if you think Perry's actions weren't politically motivated. TX republicans hate hate hate the Travis Co. DA's office, because it is one of the only effective checks on their power in the state.

Except he offered to appoint someone already in the Travis County DA's office (who was presumably selected by the person he wanted to oust and likely would have taken similar actions).

It is entirely possible that he wanted to oust her since he hated her for political reasons (and that he might not wanted to kicked her out if she supported him), but it wasn't so that he could replace her will someone more favorable to him or gain some political advantage - which is what Phil was alleging.

Yeah man, a friend of a friend of some guy who totes knows Perry super duper well absolutely swears honest to god that Perry was gonna appoint another democrat from the DA's office. And Perry was obviously solely motivated by a deep concern for a PR problem of a county-level DA that he hates, and gosh darn it I bet it really broke Ricky's heart to have to defund an agency the republicans wanted defunded, but principles!

When I heard Perry was indicted for abuse of power, I assumed/hoped it had something to do with his alleged "squashing" of the investigation into the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

Willingham was executed in 2004. The case was being investigated by the Texas Forensic Science Commission (due in part to relatively widespread belief that Willingham was innocent and the forensic evidence against him was all bull****) when Perry replaced the chairman and several commissioners with stooges. Then in 2011, "with Perry gearing up for a run for president, the state's attorney general delivered an opinion that appears to sharply limit the commission's authority."

A long 2009 New Yorker article was one of the turning points in convincing many that Willingham was probably innocent: Trial By Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?

I'm unclear why this is so lol to people. The unit is investigating corruption linked to perry, perry tries to shut it down and replace a public servant investigating him with someone loyal to him. This seems plenty scandalous to me. And makes perry sound corrupt.

this

I mean it's great, a bunch of bozos on facebook get to have their chuckles then it gets pled down or dismissed or whatever, nothing will come of it and everyone forgets. Cf. Tom Delay.

Uh, Bug Man was driven from office and is now resigned to milking his z-list celebrity status to pay the bills.

And he ain't 100% clear yet either.

Did you read the article, or do you just auto-spout crap? The fact that Perry had offered to replace her with a Democrat was confirmed by a Travis County Judge (who is a Democrat) involved in the negotiations. He's clearly not an ally of Perry so unless you have some reason to believe he was lying about Perry's offer, I'm not sure what your point is other than to juts post lolRepublicans and cover your ears to actual facts.

Given that the "smoking gun" was a very public statement that specifically explained it wasn't about politics, how do you prove that beyond a reasonable doubt that it was in fact about politics?

And "just because" is obviously not a valid answer.

You might want to reread that article yourself. It's all anonymous sources and 3rd hand information. There is also a lot of confusing information about timelines, and it's not entirely clear what was offered before the veto and what was offered after.

First point: The Travis Co. DA does not operate in a vacuum, and the Travis Co. Democrats are not idiots. We'll likely never know what the exact offers from Perry were or what strings were attached, but we do know that Lehmberg found them unacceptable and that the rest of the county Dem's decided not to throw her under the bus. That's pretty clear evidence that Perry's bullying actual offer was far from magnanimous.

Second, I can't lol enough at you honestly believing that Perry was acting for any other reason than partisan political gain. Do you still believe in the Easter Bunny too? It's Texas politics. They play hardball down there. Both sides.



Response applies to Geaux as well.

Right, but the point I was making is 99% of people who remember the mugshot have no idea his case was ultimately chucked out.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...idiculous.html

Lol at anyone buying this stupid ****

Why is forcing her to resign even an issue? How is a DUI not grounds for immediate dismissal?

Lol

Who would dismiss her? She's elected by the people.

Lol, no, Volokh is not in any way non-partisan. He is a firm GOP supporter. Doesn't mean your link is wrong; I didn't even read it. But non partisan he ain't.

First, I don't think Perry is under any legal obligation to act magnanimously toward anyone.

Second, you may or may not be right, but "lol it's so obvious but I have no evidence" is obviously not going to hold up in court.

Perry may be a scumbag politician (just like the people who worked to indict him,) but I still haven't seen anything yet that proves he's a felony criminal.

Everyone involved in this looks pretty awful.

1. Elected DA convicted of a crime and spending 45 days in jail and acting in a manner wholly inconsistent with her duties should have resigned or been impeached.

2. Perry trying to presure her to resign so he could appoint a political crony looks bad, because it looks like he wanted her to resign not because of the DUI, but because he wanted a republican in charge of the public integrity unit, which was prosecuting and investigating corrupt republicans.

3. Indictment looks lolbad stupid, and the special prosecutor looks to have exercised really poor judgment in bringing criminal charges over this.

4. This whole thing is a giant black eye for the criminal justice system, and District Attorneys/criminal prosecution, it really makes the rest of us look bad. Maybe not as bad as, say, Mike Nifong, but still pretty bad.

It's politics

District Attorneys and their prosecutors should be apolitical.

You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our Governors can't openly breach ethics laws.

Yeah, neither has anybody else. That's why he's, you know, not a convicted felon. Proof of guilt isn't where the bar is set for a grand jury indictment.

Seems to me that you're willing to accept that both sides are driven by partisan concerns, and I'd agree. But you're also trying to shrug off Perry's bullying as NBD while simultaneously being OUTRAGED that the DA's office is playing back at him just as hard.

Hypocrisy, is it you?

I should have written it better. Volokh is partisan, but his blog is one of the most respected in the legal industry and his legal analysis is recognized as being non-partisan (despite his personal views).