You Will Anyway: You were expecting justice?

Sunday, September 17, 2023

You were expecting justice?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted Saturday in an impeachment trial before the state Senate. He was accused of abusing his office to protect a political donor.

[...]

This verdict is the culmination of a nearly four-month saga that started in May, when the GOP-led Texas House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to impeach Paxton.

[...]

Paxton has been suspended from his duties since May, when the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach him. Saturday's Senate vote automatically reinstates Paxton to his role as attorney general.

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Senators deliberated for nearly nine hours before reaching a verdict. A two-thirds vote — or 21 of the 30 eligible senators — was needed to convict Paxton on each of the 16 articles of impeachment he faced.

NPR

Not even one article passed.

The House's move came after Paxton asked for $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit with four of his former deputies who sued him after being fired shortly after they reported Paxton's alleged misdeeds to the FBI.

[...]

Paxton asked his top deputies for legal counsel on a disputed records request involving Nate Paul, an Austin businessman who was being investigated by federal law enforcement.

[...]

Paxton told one of his deputies he didn't want his office to help the FBI or the Texas Department of Public Safety on the investigation involving Paul.

Paxton eventually hired an outside attorney, which goes against agency protocol, to issue grand jury subpoenas to help Paul in his fight against the federal government, investigators said. Brandon Cammack, the hired attorney, testified that he was never paid by Paxton's office but did do the work.

Stiffing contractors sounds familiar.

Throughout this impeachment process, Paxton has received the support of former President Donald Trump.

Color me shocked.

House impeachment managers also alleged that Paul paid for Paxton's home renovations, particularly new cabinets and countertops — something the defense argued never happened, showing photos as evidence that the countertops had not been changed.

The prosecution responded with evidence showing Paxton made a payment of over $121,000 to a construction company associated with Paul on Oct. 1, 2020, a day after Paxton's former employees reported him to the FBI.

Money laundering perhaps?

Paxton is scheduled to have an interview next week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Anyone still watching Tucker?

The FBI is investigating the allegations made by [Paxton's] former employees. According to The Associated Press, prosecutors took grand jury testimony from Paxton's former personal aide Drew Wicker in August.

Paxton has also been under indictment since 2015 for securities fraud, but has yet to face a trial.

So maybe some justice is still possible.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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"It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing." -- Howard Zinn

"It’s not about not having something to hide; it’s about having something to lose. What we lose when we’re under observation is our humanity...Rights are inherent to our nature, they’re not granted by governments, they’re guaranteed by governments. They’re protected by governments." -- Edward Snowden

"Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause.” -- Howard Zinn

"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

"We should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace [Stasi style] mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose.” ~ Edward Snowden

"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." ~ Mayer Rothschild

"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." ~ LACUNA

"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

"There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack." ~ Molly Ivins

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." ~ James Thurber

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane....When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, 'Except in wartime.'" -- George McGovern

"I’ll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one." ~ Bill Moyers

"When did hope become a political dynamic? Hope is right below wishful thinking and right above performing a rain dance on the scale of activity." ~ Rich Hall

Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.