{"id":13483,"date":"2014-08-17T00:25:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T07:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13483"},"modified":"2014-08-17T00:25:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T07:25:44","slug":"99-years-is-too-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/17\/99-years-is-too-little\/","title":{"rendered":"99 Years Is Too Little!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans regularly commit crimes while in office, but they do so only on days that begin with the letter T<\/strong>.  That\u2019s Tuesday, Thursdays, Taturday, Tunday, Today and Tomorrow.  However they are rarely called to account for their crimes as David \u201cDiaper Dave\u201d Vitter (R-LA) will attest.  However, a Grand Jury has handed down incitements against Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) that could send him to prison for up to 99 years, even though I doubt that he\u2019ll ever serve a day.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"PerryHat\"A grand jury indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts on Friday, charging that he abused his power last year when he tried to pressure the district attorney here, a Democrat, to step down by threatening to cut off state financing to her office. <\/p>\n

The indictment left Mr. Perry, a Republican, the first Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal charges and presented a major roadblock to his presidential ambitions at the very time that he had been showing signs of making a comeback. <\/p>\n

Grand jurors in Travis County charged Mr. Perry with abusing his official capacity and coercing a public servant<\/strong>, according to Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor assigned to the case.<\/p>\n

The long-simmering case has centered on Mr. Perry\u2019s veto power as governor. His critics asserted that he used that power as leverage to try to get an elected official \u2014 Rosemary Lehmberg, the district attorney in Travis County \u2014 to step down after her arrest on a drunken-driving charge last year. Ms. Lehmberg is Austin\u2019s top prosecutor and oversees a powerful public corruption unit that investigates state, local and federal officials; its work led to the 2005 indictment of a former Republican congressman, Tom DeLay, on charges of violating campaign finance laws\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s true that Perry does have the right as governor to use a line item veto for items in the Texas budget, but he does not have the right to use that veto as a threat to prevent other elected officials from representing the people that elected them<\/font>.<\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow provided excellent coverage of Perry’s crimes.<\/font><\/p>\n