Tag Archives: Rick Perry

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Oops … Gov. Perry indicted on coercion charges

A Texas grand jury has issued a two-count indictment that goes far beyond any definition of a run-of-the-mill accusation.

The Travis County panel today indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two counts of abuse of power relating to his threat to withhold money from a district attorney’s office if the DA didn’t resign.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/08/15/grand-jury-indicts-perry-abuse-authority/

One charge is of “abuse of official capacity,” the other is “coercion of a public servant.” The former is a Class A felony, the latter a Class C.

OK, I get that Perry is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Thus, he need not quit an office he is leaving voluntarily at the end of the year.

This, however, is a big political deal apart from the criminal justice aspect.

Perry got himself involved in the Travis County DA’s affairs after DA Rosemary Lehmberg was convicted of drunken driving. Perry threatened to veto money appropriated by the Legislature for Lehmberg’s office. Lehmberg also runs the state’s public integrity unit. Lehmberg is a Democrat; Perry is a Republican.

Perry wanted her moved out. Did he abuse his power to seek her ouster? The grand jury has issued an accusation, which I’m going to presume means the panel believes it has enough evidence to support an indictment.

Well, what does this mean for Perry’s believed desire to run for president in 2016? For my money, it delivers a near-mortal wound to whatever ambition he has for higher office. Whether this case gets adjudicated in time for the presidential campaign or not, the indictment becomes fodder that every Perry foe in both political parties will use to beat him senseless.

One final thought …

Let’s not accuse the grand jury of acting on political motives. The prosecutor in this case was a special counsel brought in to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

The political damage is evident. My hunch is that Gov. Perry also has a serious legal fight on his hands.

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Gov. Perry overreaching?

Texas lawmakers think Gov. Rick Perry might be overreaching his own self with regard to the planned deployment of National Guard forces to protect Texans against the influx of … children.

Seems that the governor is using his executive authority to spend $75 million in public money for this deployment, which some lawmakers think is an overreach.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/08/some-lawmakers-question-perrys-border-funding-move/

Interesting, eh?

I don’t know enough about the details of what kind of power the governor has in these matters, but it does intrigue me that this governor, who’s been so critical of federal overreach by the White House might be getting into a bit of a jam at home over the very same issue.

“The Legislative Budget Board has authority to move money around the budget in between legislative sessions. Perry, however, bypassed formal board action to free $38 million to pay for the Guard in the early stages of its deployment and to help fund a DPS border surge,” the San Antonio Express-News reported in its blog.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, says the deployment doesn’t make sense in the first place.

He’s right. It doesn’t. The Guard can do little to stop the flow of children fleeing Central America.

The lame-duck governor, though, says he’s doing it for symbolic reasons.

Whatever. It now might against state law for him to just spend the money willy-nilly.

The irony is fairly rich, don’t you think?

 

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Congress quits on border crisis

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This is just about perfect.

Congress yaps at President Obama to do something about the refugee crisis on our southern border. The president responds with a hefty emergency spending request. Congress then says it’s too much. Then both chambers fight among themselves. The House of Representatives approves a much smaller plan, while the Senate croaks.

Then the Congress goes home for the rest of the summer.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/house-gop-pass-border-bill-109662.html?hp=t1

OK, so what’s Barack Obama going to do now? Will he — heaven forbid! — invoke some executive authority to get something done?

This is an utterly ridiculous state of affairs.

The border is choked with refugees, mostly youngsters, fleeing repression in Central America. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called out the National Guard. For what purpose remains a mystery, given that the guardsmen cannot arrest anyone. Members of Congress, chiefly Republicans, accuse the president of allowing the crisis to build. They demand action. Then the president acts and Congress fails to follow through.

Now they’re heading home, or perhaps on some “factfinding” junkets to exotic locations. They’ll schmooze with supporters at faux “town hall meetings,” hearing from the home folks about what a rotten job the president is doing. Or if they represent voters who support the president, they’ll get a snootful about what a rotten bunch the Republicans have become.

Meanwhile, that so-called crisis our border goes unattended.

This isn’t how representative democracy is supposed to work.

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Troops to the border

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The more I think about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to mobilize approximately 1,000 National Guard troops to patrol the Texas-Mexico border, the more ridiculous it sounds.

Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka had a brief post on it Monday. Here is most of what he posted: “What is the purpose of sending the Guard to the border? The National Guard is a military force. Is its mission military or humanitarian? Who is the giving the orders? What are the rules of engagement? Who is the enemy? Are the troops going to cross the border and invade a foreign country, as Pancho Villa did in Columbus, New Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution? Meanwhile, what happens to the refugees? And, by the way, what is this going to cost? These are good questions in search of answers.”

If there ever was a political stunt meant to appeal to an audience outside of Texas, the governor has just performed it — clumsily, I should add.

Perry’s decision is pure showboating.

As for the cost, it became known earlier today. The troops will cost the Texas treasury an estimated $12 million per month.

To do what? The National Guard has no jurisdiction in the effort to stem the tide of children fleeing their Central American nations. Fox News’s Brit Hume asked Perry about that very thing. The governor’s response? He said the troops were there for show. He knows they cannot arrest anyone, or that their “adversaries” are unarmed children who are surrendering in droves quite willingly to local police and federal Border Patrol agents.

The governor wants to run for president in 2016. This National Guard stunt is aimed at the Republican Party primary base in places like Iowa and New Hampshire that is going to eat this stuff up.

It’s another embarrassing display of grandstanding.

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DREAM Act not related to current crisis

Let’s try to end this nonsensical discussion about whether the DREAM Act has played a role in the crisis on our southern border.

It hasn’t a thing to do with it.

The DREAM Act — which stands for Development, Relief, Education for Alien Minors — is intended to give a break those who were brought here illegally by their parents when they were children. It’s meant to clear a path toward citizenship if these individuals meet certain requirements.

The principle — supported by none other than Texas Gov. Rick Perry, among others — is to give those who have known only life in the United States to become citizens. It’s akin to Perry’s support of providing in-state public university tuition to these young Texans.

Some critics of President Obama have sought to suggest that the DREAM Act is a code for “amnesty” for the children who are flocking to this country from Central America. The actual attraction comes from a 2008 law signed by President Bush after it was approved unanimously by Congress. The law is intended to strike back against child pornographers and other human traffickers by making it more difficult to deport those who are here illegally.

With the border being choked with young refugees from Latin America, some now want to tweak that 2008 law to speed up the deportation process.

The hysterical criticism that gets tossed around, however, needs to be reeled in.

The border crisis really isn’t a function of a “porous border.” It’s a lengthy border along our southern flank, to be sure. However, to suggest that the U.S. Border Patrol isn’t doing its job requires one to examine all the children who have been taken into custody.

They are being held in detention centers. The system has been choked by the sheer volume of refugees who have fled here. It needs serious repair.

How about we deal with the real problem and stop casting blame in search of scapegoats?

The DREAM Act isn’t the problem.

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Stop laughing, Mr. President

A friend of mine got upset early today at a picture.

The picture showed President Obama sharing a light moment with someone at a conference table. Texas Gov. Rick Perry also is present. He’s not laughing. At the moment the picture was snapped, he appeared to be scowling. I doubt that was the emotion he was expressing.

Pictures such as the one to which I refer serve to inflame partisans. My pal was angry that the picture showed Obama laughing at a meeting called to discuss the border crisis involving those tens of thousands of children who are fleeing into the United States from Central America.

I have no clue what caused Obama to chuckle at that moment. Neither does my friend.

Strangely enough, I understand why he would be upset. He’s angry about the crisis. He thinks the president should do something to stop it. There’s nothing funny at the meeting, my friend believes.

Well, maybe someone said something that tickled Barack Obama’s fancy. Maybe the governor of Texas cracked a joke later, or perhaps he’d done so earlier.

Pictures, as they say, can tell a thousand words. This one, though, tells just a few. The president of the United States had the temerity to actually laugh.

God have mercy if this kind of thing is going to get us upset.

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Abuse of power allegation may spell trouble

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is looking and sounding more and more like a candidate for president in 2016.

That is, unless he gets indicted by a Travis County grand jury for abusing the power of his office.

If he faces criminal charges, all bets are off for the lame-duck governor.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/25998425/grand-jury-decides-if-perry-abused-power

The panel is expected to decide soon whether Perry abused his power when he vetoed money for the Travis County district attorney’s office after DA Rosemary Lehmberg pleaded guilty to drunken driving. Perry demanded her resignation, which was justified, given that the DA lost her moral authority to prosecute drunken drivers.

Then he allegedly went a step too far by threatening to veto $7.5 million that was earmarked for the Travis County DA’s public integrity unit, which is charged with investigating charges of ethical lapses by state officials.

Oh, did I mention that Lehmberg is a Democrat and Perry is a Republican? That distinction seems to matter.

Lehmberg refused to quit and Perry pulled the money.

Now he’s being investigated for abusing his power.

So, what does this mean for his budding presidential campaign? Plenty. He cannot possibly campaign as a Mr. Clean Governor if he’s about to stand trial for a felony offense related to the performance of the office he’s occupied since The Flood.

Then again, if the grand jury no-bills the governor — which of course is a possibility — then he’s back in the presidential sweepstakes once again.

But if the indictment arrives, well, if you’ll pardon the expression: Oops.

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Why not act on your own, Mr. President?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry reportedly posed an interesting notion to President Obama when the men met this week in Dallas to discuss the illegal immigrant/refugee border crisis on the Texas border with Mexico.

Why not take action on your own, Mr. President? Perry asked.

Interesting, yes? Obama said he responded that such executive decisiveness has produced the real threat of a lawsuit by House Speaker John Boehner, who contends Obama does too much of that kind of thing already.

No can do, governor.

Obama is pushing Congress now to act on his request for a $3.7 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the crisis that involves the flood of young immigrants coming into the United States from Central America. Congress insists the president do something about it. He has asked Congress to give him the money to do what it asks. It’s now up to Congress to, um, do what it has insisted on doing all along.

Can the president act alone? I suppose there are ways he can do a little of this and that administratively.

It’s interesting nonetheless that Gov. Perry would have made such a suggestion at a time when his Republican colleagues in Congress are considering legal action to prevent that very thing.

The ball has been kicked back to Congress. What are you going to do with it, ladies and gentlemen?

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Obama to GOP: Pass the supplemental

Here is where we stand on the border crisis erupting in Texas and elsewhere on the southern border.

President Barack Obama has met with Texas Gov. Rick Perry to discuss ways to solve the problem. Obama asked Congress for $3.7 billion in supplemental aid to provide greater border security and enhance detention and repatriation efforts. The president and the governor have reached broad agreement on what to do. The next move now belongs to Congress.

Will it approve the request or will it stall?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/barack-obama-texas-immigration-108738.html?hp=t1_3

The president has called Congress out and asked lawmakers to do as he has asked and as they have insisted. Gov. Perry agrees with him — in what might one of the rarest political alignments in recent memory.

So get it done.

The president and the governor had what Obama called a “constructive” meeting. That’s a start. It’s good the men had a chance to talk things over and to settle on areas of agreement.

The border crisis didn’t just erupt overnight. It’s been years in the making. Obama now wants Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform, which includes more border officers, greater enforcement tools, and streamlining of wait times for immigrants to have their cases resolved.

Politics, of course, gets in the way of everything.

First things first. The supplemental request needs to become law. Send it to the Oval Office and let the president sign it. Now.

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The Texas/Mexico border awaits, Mr. President

One more thought about the president’s upcoming visit to Texas … and then I hope to move on.

The White House says President Obama has no plans to visit the southern Texas border when he comes to the state today to raise money for Democratic candidates.

White House staffers believe it wouldn’t produce anything positive for the president. They are wrong.

Recall the time Obama went to New Jersey near the end of the 2012 campaign to view the damage brought by Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy. He won high praise from Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for showing up.

Also, recall what happened when President George W. Bush was photographed flying over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He was pilloried for failing to put his own boots on the soggy ground to view the damage.

Was Obama more caring about New Jersey than Bush was about New Orleans? No.

There is value, however, in seeing these crises up close.

The Texas border is being inundated with illegal immigrants coming into this country from Central America. Most of them appear to be unaccompanied children sent here by those notorious “coyotes” who prey on illegal immigrants. We have a refugee crisis on the border.

The president needs to see what’s happening so he can assess better how to deal directly with it.

He’ll meet with Gov. Rick Perry. The two men likely will have a “frank” discussion — which, in diplomatic language means they might cuss at each other. That’s fine. The meeting is a good idea, too.

The visit to Texas will be complete, though, with a tour of the crisis on our state’s southern border. Take a look, Mr. President.