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October 05, 2005

Tom DeLay Update

So, as many of you already know, Ronnie Earle rushed to empanel a new grand jury when Tom DeLay's lawyer moved to quash the, uhhh, "indictment" he already had in hand. The reason? The law he was indicted on was passed in 2003. The transaction supposedly violating that law occurred in 2002.

Talk about loose shit. I guess Ronnie Earle was absent the day they taught law in law school.

So now he's seeking a quickie money-laundering charge. It's bullshit, because Texas law states that money laundering occurs when money obtained through illegal means is passed through a front. The money was not raised through illegally, but through perfectly legal means. Whether or not the subsequent transaction was shady is irrelevant. The law applies to criminal proceeds; money laundering just does not apply.

Now the New Editor catches that a third grand jury refused to indict delay. Funny how the media isn't reporting that.

It's also funny that no record of the grand jury's refusal to indict can be found at the courthouse.

Memo to Ronnie Earl: Hope you've already signed all the contracts for your Hollywood Moment. 'Cuzzin' I'm thinking you just jumped the shark.

"The Man Who Almost Got DeLay, But Fucked It All Up Because He Was an Incompetent Hyperpartisan Hack" just isn't a good title.

The Actual Law: JoeInDC44 was on the ball enough to look it up:

PENAL CODE
CHAPTER 34. MONEY LAUNDERING

§ 34.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

§ 34.02. MONEY LAUNDERING. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person knowingly:
(1) acquires or maintains an interest in, receives,
conceals, possesses, transfers, or transports the proceeds of
criminal activity;
(2) conducts, supervises, or facilitates a
transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity; or
(3) invests, expends, or receives, or offers to
invest, expend, or receive, the proceeds of criminal activity or
funds that the person believes are the proceeds of criminal
activity.

Oh, there's some bullshit argument that can be made, I guess, that if you know in advance you're raising money with the intent to subvert campaign finance laws you are, constructively, raising money via "criminal activity."

Trouble is, that's a stretch, and besides, there was no law on the books to subvert in 2002, when the transaction complained of actually occurred.

Once again: that law was passed in 2003.

So that's gonna be a hard argument to make. "See, the accused knew what he was doing was legal, but he also knew a year later it wouldn't be, so by acting in 2002 rather than 2003, he was criminally conspiring to subvert a law which wasn't in effect yet but which later would be."

I think I saw a similar line of argument in the new Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Special Retard-Law Unit. "The criminal justice system is made up of two equally important groups: the police who arrest the criminals, and the retarded lawyers who drool over their memos as they comically attempt to prosecute them..."

Retard-lawyers don't win many cases, but they work cheap. They're paid in tapioca.

posted by Ace at 04:34 PM

Comments

"The money was not raised through legal means, but perfectly legal means."

Typo dude. Loose shit.

Posted by: Iblis on October 5, 2005 04:45 PM

What a scumbag. I knew the moneylaundering charge sounded bogus, so I actually looked it up, unlike the Washington Post, and found the concept that my legal brain forgot, the illegal means. Money laundering is not itself illegal because of the movement, its the movement of money that was tainted.

So, we have another non-indictment. First, this guy Earle fights for jurisdiction (anyone have any info on that?), then gets an indictment of an alleged crime without a statute in effect, now he flunks an even prima facie criminal case. Rush played audio of the Grand Jury member who was ready to indict for anything. There should be a criminal version of rule 11, and this guy should be doing the perp walk on his way to jail for contempt.

PENAL CODE

CHAPTER 34. MONEY LAUNDERING

§ 34.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

§ 34.02. MONEY LAUNDERING. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person knowingly:
(1) acquires or maintains an interest in, receives,
conceals, possesses, transfers, or transports the proceeds of
criminal activity;
(2) conducts, supervises, or facilitates a
transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity; or
(3) invests, expends, or receives, or offers to
invest, expend, or receive, the proceeds of criminal activity or
funds that the person believes are the proceeds of criminal
activity.

Posted by: joeindc44 on October 5, 2005 05:00 PM

The law he was indicted on was passed in 2003. The transaction supposedly violating that law occurred in 2002.

Oh, this is hilarious. They seem to do alot of this stuff and the law is fairly new. It's more than odd they would not notice their fatal flaw.

Posted by: on October 5, 2005 05:21 PM

My caveat is that I only found the unabridged Texas Code online. Maybe in Texas "proceeds of criminal activity" has been rendered meaningless by caselaw.

Posted by: joeindc44 on October 5, 2005 05:24 PM

I still like Earle because of that kickass song "Guitar Town."

Posted by: Hubris on October 5, 2005 05:46 PM

I think I saw a similar line of argument in the new Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Special Retard-Law Unit. "

Priceless, f'n priceless!

Posted by: Laddy on October 5, 2005 05:46 PM

The funniest part of this is earlier this week NPR interviewed the foreman of the jury who indicted DeLay (on the first charge). Guy says, "once people see what we saw, you'll know that something was wrong".

But today, I hear on Rush an audio clip of him on a local Austin radio program admitting that he had already convicted DeLay before he was on the grand jury because of the ads DeLay's PAC was running.

News reax of all this? Deafening. I mean just imagine--Bill Fundie, Republican D.A. trumps up charges on Harry Reid. Reid's lawyer shows it's bunkum, real fishing-expidition bunkum. Republican jury foreman gives interview where he admits a bias against Reid before he's empaneled. Can you say [i]20/20[/i] segment?

Posted by: rho on October 5, 2005 05:51 PM

I'm going to have to second Laddy's comment above. Law and Order: Special Retard-Law Unit.

That's some good stuff there.

Posted by: MH on October 5, 2005 07:17 PM

You're on f'n fire with this post, ace. It starts out great and then just gets better. Nice work.

Posted by: OregonMuse on October 5, 2005 08:19 PM

Some of my community's moonbats are having multiple orgasms over the Delay indictment in our letters-to-the-editor section of the local paper. I'd love to be standing in a group of them when it gets thrown out of court.

Posted by: OregonMuse on October 5, 2005 08:56 PM

Dang you, Ace - I just sprayed coke out my nostrils all over my keyboard when I read:

"I think I saw a similar line of argument in the new Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Special Retard-Law Unit.
The criminal justice system is made up of two equally important groups: the police who arrest the criminals, and the retarded lawyers who drool over their memos as they comically attempt to prosecute them..."

You owe my $25 for a new keyboard, pal.

:-)

Posted by: DocJ on October 5, 2005 10:53 PM

ACE:Retard-lawyers don't win many cases, but they work cheap. They're paid in tapioca.
Buddy this quote is why you should get paid the BIG BUCKS. You are so much better than the MSM it's outrageous. Shame on N.Y.Times, WPO and Newsweek. They're wasting their money not hiring you.

Posted by: john on October 6, 2005 02:28 AM

OregonMuse,

I work in an office surrounded by our local Moonbats. I'll try to get you pictures when their heads explode.

Posted by: Brian B on October 6, 2005 01:33 PM

Hi,

You guys are nuts. The 2003 law just made more explicit what was already on the books.

Also, you might notice what has already happened in this case, which previous indictments THAT STUCK?

Earle has been knocking this one down from the little guys up. You and I don't know what squealing has already happened!

On the off-chance that geoff is reading this, here's a nice source explaining why the unemployment numbers are as bad as I said they are.

Posted by: tubino on October 6, 2005 02:18 PM

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Podcast: Sefton and CBD are joined by Jeff Carter, candidate for NV treasurer, and seasoned finance professional, for a discussion of the issues facing Nevadans, and the larger financial challenges in America.

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Few people remember that Norm MacDonald began his career as a ventriloquist
MacDonald's old partner Adam Egot revealed that MacDonald repurposed a bit with one of his ventriloquist dolls -- that he was a "bad guy" who "didn't believe the Holocaust happened" -- for the Norm MacDonald show, in which he claimed Egot didn't believe in the Holocaust.

Funniest thing I've read about the Virginia mess. Back when they were hustling the referendum through the assembly both Senators, Warner and Kaine, advised them to go slow and play by the rules. Louise Lucas said she respected them but didn't need advice from the "cuck chair" in the corner. The gerrymandering was overturned and Louise is heading for the big house. Edward G. Robinson voice "where's your cuck now?"
Posted by: Smell the Glove

I posted his post on twitter and it's gotten 25K views so far. Thanks, Smell the Glove

Chris
@chriswithans

"Ahhhhh ahh I put my career on the line for Louise Lucas and Jay Jones thinking they'd vault me into presidential contention and we ended up costing Democrats 20 House seats and unleashing a Reverse Dobbs ahhhhh ahhh"

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click That Sums Up the Democrat Communist Party Today
Something is wrong as I hold you near
Somebody else holds your heart, yeah
You turn to me with your icy tears
And then it's raining, feels like it's raining

TJM wonders about world building in stories, mostly The Hunger Games

"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

Hamas is Humiliating Trump's 'Board of Peace'
[Hat Tip: TC] [CBD]

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