November 2005 Archives

The attorneys for Tom DeLay and Ronnie Earle are battling it out in the courtroom today over a motion to dismiss. I should point out that a motion to dismiss is almost always filed by the defendant but is seldom granted by judges, the theory being that a District Attorney would not file a case without reasonable cause and that the court is the proper venue for determining whether the facts and the law are actually applicable. Personally, I would be very surprised if the motion to dismiss is granted. If it is, then Ronnie Earle should quietly resign his job and hope that Tom DeLay and others don’t pursue charges on him.

NRO’s Stephen Spruiell is reporting that “that the judge, Pat Priest, has been pretty tough on Ronnie Earle’s case in his questioning, asking things like, ‘Why so many indictments?’ and ‘Why are you alleging a violation of criminal law when the transaction is more properly addressed by the election code?’” 

Spruiell also links to an expert opinion letter from University of Texas Law Professor Susan Klein, who has this to say:

In brief, it is my opinion that neither Texas Penal Code section 15.02, prohibiting criminal conspiracy, nor Texas Penal Code section 34.02, prohibiting money laundering, applies where the predicate offense is a violation of the the Texas Election Code. Moreover, there can no no substantive money laundering violation as a matter of law where the transaction consisted of the passing of a personal or business check.

Judge Priest is expected to rule on the motion to dismiss in about 2 weeks. Despite displeasure expressed by DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin, he is likely ecstatic that Judge Priest did not rule immediately. While DeLay obviously wanted the judge to dismiss the charges today, there will still be celebrations in the DeLay camp tonight and knots in the stomach of Ronnie Earle.

Stephen Spruiell reports o Pew Poll finding on NRO. According to the poll:

• 56 percent of the public believes “efforts to establish a stable democracy” in Iraq will succeed while 63 percent of the news media elite think it will fail
• a plurality of 48 percent of the public think going to war in Iraq was correct, but 71 percent of the news media elite consider it a bad decision
• the public is split evenly at 44 percent on whether the Iraq war has helped or hurt the war on terrorism, but an overwhelming 68 percent of the news media elite say it has hurt
• 46 percent of the public believe torture of terrorist suspects is often or sometimes “justified,” while 78 percent of the news media elite contend it is “rarely” or “never” justified.
• news media elite approval of Bush’s job performance — at a lowly 21 percent — is half that of the public’s

Why did we have to take a poll to find out what we already knew? The mainstream news media is out of touch with America and is totally delusional when it comes to foreign policy.