The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution is the strongest statement therein that powers not expressly granted the State are retained as rights of the People. The State has misconstrued, misrepresented, ignored, and denied the People's rights by elimination of protections reserved alone to them, not recognized by the Supreme Court, the Legislative, and worst the Executive Branch in the illegitimate exercise of draconian powers which unlawfully disparage the inalienable rights of the People.
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
After some good news for the Trump administration in the Mueller report, Congress has yet to have its say on the matter.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
Image
After some good news for the Trump administration in the Mueller report, Congress has yet to have its say on the matter.CreditCreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
On its face, the letter that Attorney General William Barr sent to Congress on Sunday afternoon, summarizing the key findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, is good news, not just for President Trump.
According to Mr. Barr’s four-page summary, Mr. Mueller and his team were unable to establish that anyone connected to the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government when it interfered to help Mr. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.
This should provide some relief to all Americans who have harbored fears that a presidential candidate was conspiring with Vladimir Putin to subvert American democracy. Mr. Mueller — who never once responded to the shameless stream of insults Mr. Trump has hurled at him over the last two years — is as careful and thorough an investigator as there is. His investigation lasted almost two years, issued more than 2,800 subpoenas and roughly 500 search warrants and heard from a similar number of witnesses. If he couldn’t find any links, it’s doubtful anyone could.
What this outcome is not, however, is a “Complete and Total EXONERATION,” as Mr. Trump unsurprisingly spun it. Mr. Mueller explicitly declined to exonerate the president on the matter of obstruction of justice — a crime that constituted one of the articles of impeachment for both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. After examining Mr. Trump’s actions and weighing “difficult issues” of law and fact, Mr. Mueller punted. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report states.
Mr. Barr wasn’t as cautious. Less than 48 hours after receiving Mr. Mueller’s report, the attorney general briskly decided that Mr. Trump had not obstructed justice. Why not? Because there was no underlying crime to obstruct, Mr. Barr said, and anyway, most of Mr. Trump’s behavior took place in full public view, had no connection to any legal proceeding, and wasn’t “done with corrupt intent.” How did Mr. Barr make these determinations so quickly? On what evidence in the report did he base it?
Recall that Mr. Barr got his current job only after Mr. Trump shoved out his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, for not showing him enough personal loyalty and shutting down the Russia investigation at the start. Among the reasons Mr. Barr may have appealed to the president was an unsolicited memo he sent last year to the Justice Department, taking the position that Mr. Mueller should not be allowed to question Mr. Trump about obstructing justice, and that the president could not be guilty of obstruction unless there were an underlying crime to obstruct.
In other words, Mr. Barr did exactly as Mr. Trump hoped he would. But there’s a reason obstructing justice is a crime on its own. The justice system doesn’t work when people lie to authorities, no matter why they do so.
Mr. Barr’s curious views on obstruction are just one reason that Mr. Mueller’s full report must be made available, immediately, to both Congress and the American people. . . .
By unilaterally concluding that Mr. Trump did not obstruct justice, the attorney general has made it imperative that the public see the Mueller report.
By Neal K. Katyal
Mr. Katyal is a law professor at Georgetown. He drafted the special counsel regulations under which Robert Mueller was appointed.
Image
Attorney General William Barr said that Robert Mueller’s team drew no conclusions about whether President Trump illegally obstructed justice.CreditCreditT.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
On Sunday afternoon, soon after Attorney General Bill Barr released a letter outlining the Mueller investigation report, President Trump tweeted “Total EXONERATION!” But there are any number of reasons the president should not be taking a victory lap.
First, obviously, he still faces the New York investigations into campaign finance violations by the Trump team and the various investigations into the Trump organization. And Mr. Barr, in his letter, acknowledges that the Mueller report “does not exonerate” Mr. Trump on the issue of obstruction, even if it does not recommend an indictment.
But the critical part of the letter is that it now creates a whole new mess. After laying out the scope of the investigation and noting that Mr. Mueller’s report does not offer any legal recommendations, Mr. Barr declares that it therefore “leaves it to the attorney general to decide whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.” He then concludes the president did not obstruct justice when he fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey.
Such a conclusion would be momentous in any event. But to do so within 48 hours of receiving the report (which pointedly did not reach that conclusion) should be deeply concerning to every American.
The special counsel regulations were written to provide the public with confidence that justice was done. It is impossible for the public to reach that determination without knowing two things. First, what did the Mueller report conclude, and what was the evidence on obstruction of justice? And second, how could Mr. Barr have reached his conclusion so quickly?
Mr. Barr’s letter raises far more questions than it answers, both on the facts and the law. . . .
Despite what the attorney general’s letter to Congress states, his argument clearing the president of obstruction goes against established law and is profoundly dangerous.
Senator Joseph McCarthy, left, at the Army-McCarthy Senate hearings in 1954 and Donald Trump in Ohio in June 2016. CreditLeonard Mccombe/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images, (left); Patrick Semansky, via Associated Press, (right).
UPDATES to 3 January 2018 " . . . Mr. Trump now practices Mr. McCarthy’s version of the politics of fear from the White House. The two figures, who bear striking similarities " — and who shared an adviser, Roy Cohn — "both mastered the art of fear politics.. . . . Mr. Trump knows what people want to hear — how terrifying the world can be and how he can protect them. Fearmongering resonates with his political base, particularly white voters without college degrees. . . ."
James Risen and Tom Risen 22 June 2017 "Donald Trump Does His Best Joe McCarthy Impression" NYT
The editorial board of the Ninth Amendment wishes to inform or remind readers as the case may be that oddly not so often mentioned is the fact that this totally corrupt despicable pathologically lying leading Republican politician of the 1950's Senator Joe McCarthy who needlessly inflamed unfounded terror of communist infiltration while himself promoting stark violation of core Constitutional rights of the People completely contrary to the founding principles of this Nation defiling the United States through the early 1950's by extreme abuse of power even as it was he McCarthy himself who was in fact the instigator of terror as he waved phony papers around with non-existent supposed "lists" of communists known alone to him (remind readers of any U.S. President with one apparent lawyer displaying to the press in the lobby of Trump Tower rows of boxes on tables of supposed "disclosures" later revealed to be nothing but cheap props blank sheets of paper Trump likewise later making false vague insinuations and unfounded personal slanderous allegations then like an idiotic child playing "wait and see" games as to whether and when he would disclose their obvious falsity for weeks become months then only to divert into further obfuscations?) that rampaging McCarthy sickly inventing targets both inside and outside the government of the United States from his fake lists destroying countless people's careers, lives and families while diverting the Senate and others serving in the United States government into a vast waste of resources with lost years of legitimate work which doubtless included work and resources necessary to protecting the Nation from actual dangers. McCarthy also took his stage show traveling out West for further bogus investigation of Hollywood make believe but with absolutely real world devastating consequences for vulnerable talented creative victims as he wildly careened through his path of destruction but was in reality himself all the while a severe alcoholic as was well known to his Senate colleagues combined with McCarthy further secretly suffering from longtime heavy morphine addiction practicing "morphine madness" insuring the availability of his endless opiate supply by daring Henry Anslinger the 1930-1962 Director of the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement to just try and deprive McCarthy of his opiate of choice in his alcohol-morphine fueled prime of raging terrorization of the country with McCarthy meeting secretly with Anslinger who when confronted personally declined to do Anslinger instead accommodating McCarthy arranging for him an endless refilling unlimited morphine supply through his Capitol convenient Washington, D.C. pharmacy which arrangement along with McCarthy's severe alcoholism fueled his wild seemingly unstoppable reign of terror until the day not altogether surprisingly came when after rampaging through the early 1950's like this it no longer worked as Senator Joseph McCarthy leading seemingly near all-powerful crusading Republican politician destroyer of lives found himself in remarkably rapid political decline perhaps rivaled only by the speed of his total mental and physical dissipation into a well earned non-existence just like his once fearsome "lists". Some Republicans reportedly seek to rehabilitate McCarthy's history, principally at least one particularly loathsome member of the GOP ("Government of Putin") anyway the foul product of the notably loathsome savagely corrupt Texas state Republican party maintaining a stranglehold on undeserved power only through an ongoing RICO conspiracy anathema to all democratic principles including gerrymandering, voter suppression, blatant hypocrisy and manipulation and the systematic repression of the vast majority underclass aggressively promoting ignorance among the masses to cling to power without principle enabling their pervasive unfettered corruption and absolute exploitation of the state of Texas including its future generations' to feed their limitless greed right up until the day of their inevitable reckoning arrives. U.S. Senator Ted ("Freaky Ted") Cruz Canadian born of a father from Cuba the anti-immigrationist xenophobic Republican of Texas in case one has had the unlikely pleasure of not yet having been forced to become acquainted with his universally despised existence since his first bold foray in the Senate shutting down the U.S. government for no reason at all except that he apparently could costing Americans well into the tens of billions of dollars and curtailing all non-essential federal government services having evolved now to seek to effectively deny the most vulnerable Americans all meaningful healthcare which surprisingly was not enough to win him the 2016 Republican presidential nomination this "Freaky Ted" Cruz also has demonstrated his appetite for a McCarthy-style redux built on insinuation and demagoguery publicly claiming for example that from 1992-1995 even after the Cold War had ended that twelve members of the Harvard Law School faculty were communists apparently possibly because of involvement with the area of legal scholarship known as Critical Legal Studies. Siberian Candidate Donald ("the Donald") Trump forced Cruz and all Republicans out of the Republican primary by apart from relying on vast highly coordinated Russian electoral malfeasance on his behalf also by showing great promise of being the worst possible Republican presidential candidate therefore naturally the first choice of Republicans who always since at least Richard Nixon who lied when he in fact did his best to destroy LBJ's chances of an early end to the Vietnam War leading to at least hundreds of thousands if not millions more needless deaths of the innocent only to better his chances in a presidential election now have firmly established the GOP as reliably striving to have the Republicans foist upon the American people who they in no way represent the worst available most criminally inclined deficit-mushrooming U.S. economy destroying heartless lying wretch who comes along who shows the most promise to strip any essential safety net services left from the most vulnerable including at risk babies, their mothers, the disabled, the aged and countless other most needy groups thought unable to defend themselves in order solely to gratuitously benefit their GOP filthy rich owners all the while also serving as handsomely self-compensated tools of the defense industrial pharmaceutical complex in other words that special candidate Republicans can find to put in the "driver's seat" of this Nation which it turns out they today care less about than they do even Russia the GOP new model at least for their own Republican oligarchical kleptocratic dream future. Drive on Donald. Readers interested in the full New York Times McCarthy-Trump news analysis editorial up through the above attribution including all quoted material and photographs can go to the first link below. Those interested in the Pew Research Center detailed world country survey finding the United States image "severely damaged" by Trump together with Trump's own abysmal image even below Russia's Putin and China's Xi as referenced in the above headline can go to the third link below. More updates follow. o http://www.alternet.org/video/americas-mobster-president-new-evidence-dutch-public tv-documentary#.Wcw1k_lrNnY.facebook Dutch TV Dubious Trump Friends Part 3: Multibillion-Dollar Fraud o https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/us/politics/trump-north-korea-kim.html?mcubz=1 War Risk GOP Silento https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2017/09/22/is-trump-mentally-ill-or-is-america-psychiatrists-weigh-in/?utm_term=.54d922a2afe2 Shrinks ponder Trump madman or bad man and does it matter?o https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/us/politics/trump-lawyers-white-house-russia-mcgahn-ty-cobb.html?mcubz=1 Trump-WH Lawyers NYT Heard Doud Cobb WH Strife McGahn Burck Privilege V. Mueller Cooperation o http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/47517_A_Stunner_One_of_Trumps_Digital_Campaign_Leaders_Explains_That_Facebook_Google_and_YouTube_Helped_Get_Him_Elected (BBC Video 4:43) "Facebook Got Trump Elected" $85+Million Google/YouTube Millions More "Partners" Per Digital Alamo Project Head Theresa Hong o http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8 Nazi Book Of Hitler Speeches Always At Fascist Donald Trump's Bedside o https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/28/in-1927-donald-trumps-father-was-arrested-after-a-klan-riot-in-queens/?utm_term=.33480abbda50 Nazi KKK Father's Arrest "Know Nothing" Trump Forgot o http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/10/17/documents-bush-grandfather-directed-bank-tied-to-man-who-funded-hitler.html Nazi Hitler Bush Bank Funded Rise To Power ohttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar Nazi Hitler Bush Family Support o https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/opinion/when-the-president-is-un-american.html "Un-American"
o https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/cbo-obamacare-cost-sharing-reduction-trump.html Bye Healthcare
o https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/15/us/what-happens-if-health-subsidy-payments-stop.html DT Threat
o https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-joseph-mccarthy-west-virginia.html
Parson Hicks, 35, a strong supporter of President Trump, dismissed the moral outrage at his remarks about violence in Charlottesville, Va., over the past week.M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times
CreditCopyright Martin P. 2017-2018 All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to images nor related content)
Thursday, 10 October 2014, AUSTIN, TEXAS - In a certain sign that Indicted Corrupt Texas Idiot Governor Payback Perry the "unconcerned" mugshot smirker after being indicted on two felony abuse of power counts handed down by a federal grand jury carrying a 99-year prison sentence is increasingly panicked which apparently makes him commit even stupider missteps than usual such that he might again at any moment go completely "brain dead still standing" as he did for nearly a minute on national television the Idiot Governor who already tried to force the Travis County District Attorney D.A. from office in a moronic subterfuge for cutting all funding from the state's Public Integrity Unit under the delusion that this black magically would stop in its tracks the investigation into his criminal misuse of his pet so-called Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) now known as the Perry Taxpayer Funded Slushfund Enterprise to illegally pay back political cronies who met none of the funds legal disbursement and record keeping requirements as most conveniently criminally overlooked by responsible state official co-conspirator corrupt Woman-Hating AG "Dark Money" Greg "Payday" Abbott who then shared in the millions in taxpayer loot illegally given by Perry to Abbott's major donor criminal Bank of America which then repaid Abbott with $1.4 million bribes from the same criminally misdirected Texas taxpayer money.
This now has become so widely obvious that Idiot Perry actually more desperately stupid than deemed possible filed a complaint with the present Travis Country DA that Perry's Special Prosecutor McCrum has overcharged taxpayers which complaint was swiftly dismissed considering that it only serves to highlight that Indicted Idiot Perry has as documented in an earlier post readers may find in the Ninth Amendment with corroborating published link already has illegally spent far more Texas taxpayers' money on his own criminal defense than the People's special prosecutor on indicted Perry's higher-paid "dream-on team" buttressed by the "carefree" Painter's Creek, Texas village idiot Perry having significantly expanded his legal defense team since his indictment that could lead to spending the rest of his life in prison with other much higher-paid lawyers now also paid with what Perry considers his personal money that being his "Campaign for Nothing" fund and set out his gang of internet goons he probably met in animal husbandry school to roam the internet leaving tracks behind so obvious any self-respecting Ukrainian hacker would laugh him off the face of the Northern Hemisphere and Putin would just have the whole lot of them terminated.
This Indicted Perry idiocy has come to the point of absurdity unworthy at this time of further explication as it is so obviously an amateurish attempt to derail a very serious criminal matter closing fast on him with methods that are so moronically obvious that in the words of the legendary Tom Lehrer that "only a child can do it." Meanwhile the San Antonio Express-News for interested readers links below to the pertinent article again cutting off after the first paragraph except for readers who have a subscription or perhaps consult their favorite search engine for bypassing its paywall. In performing any searches readers should not be surprise to come across more typically sneaky corrupt Abbott "sponsored" results referring as also described in an earlier Ninth Amendment post to a previously non-existent "defeat Davis" website with the ridiculously misleading paid description claim of a "Davis" debate meltdown having dropped the hysterical claim of a Davis attack on a debate moderator but still promoting the absolute lie that Davis did anything close to accomplishing anything but losing the debate to Davis. Indicted Perry and co-conspirator corrupt Davis must really have got some real winners "handling them" or the veteran liars already must have fled to non-extraditing jurisdictions.
Friday, 10 October 2014, CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS - The Republican party only wins what elections it buys preventing as many people as possible for whom it is difficult to vote to get to the polls and once there be challenged to not be "allowed to vote" such as all underprivileged and true Americans with real hard-working jobs to keep the family's food on the table and a roof over their head. This as opposed to GOP corrupt fatcats who get busloads of hungry desperate disoriented homeless and confused elderly from nursing homes picked up to stuff ballot boxes voting against themselves for the GOP or they do not get their sandwich and carton of milk plus cookie. Meanwhile the worst of the cheating non-taxpaying rich Republicans cheat untold millions from the State griping about their paying (not really) the "freeloading welfare class" well below subsistence levels as they sit in big empty houses doing no real work that does nothing but pay them boatloads not to show up at any job who can "go play golf" all day or just lounge in their huge empty mansions in their silk pajamas making insider sweetheart insider deals.
With their enterprise energy consumed with new ways to prevent legitimate voters from voting yesterday they had their heads handed to them with their despicable anti-voter GOP laws struck down as unconstitutional with twin blows yesterday by a Texas federal district court as well as the United States Supreme Court finding the GOP created voter ID laws blatantly discriminatory against people with real taxpaying jobs, minorities, the poor, the hurting and anyone else these worst of the greediest Republicans with their ill-gotten gains fear will get to the polls and actually let democracy work by booting their greedy asses out of power and the world of corruption to which it gives them access how easy having regulated dirty businesses hand one briefcases of cash in the lobby having no interest whatsoever in any real public service to every American or of doing anything useful for the United States and its future generations.
The United States Supreme Court Thursday evening struck down a Wisconsin voter ID law as unconstitutional. Meanwhile after a two-week trial in Corpus Christi, Texas the federal court's ruling by Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in a decision directly opposite to what that group of sneaky Republicans had sweated would keep their latest attempt to keep those states' overwhelming number of voters whose interests they do not represent out of the polls and keep their corrupt and criminal owned Republican stooges in their seeming permanent scandalous State crony positions demanding bribes from everyone they encounter while paying them back with taxpayer paybacks while demanding more taxes paid unfairly by the poor and making more cuts go to the few bare-bones rags rags being thrown in Texas by these career corrupt Republican old boys to the needy instead were shocked out of their silk sock, pajamas and underwear to hear the federal court ruling actually stating the truth that the state's voter ID law (just as these true enemies of the People incidentally planned) "creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose."
Texas corrupt Woman-Hater A.G. "Dark Money" Greg "Payday" Abbott who as last reported here enforces zero Texas anti-corruption laws relating to big dirty business, unregulated homeowner gouging insurance companies and his pet payday and title store and other major corrupt backroom "donors" not to mention enforcing no law against his co-conspirator indicted Texas Idiot Governor Rick "Payback" Perry nor any other GOP dark money Perry and Abbot donors such as principal Abbott "dark money" leading corrupt criminal bank major Abbott donor Bank of America who Abbott blatantly illegally failed in his A.G legal. duty to recover from B of A illegally kept millions of the $222 million Texas taxpayer dollars that the now Abbot-connected Perry TEF Texas Taxpayer Enterprise Slushfund illegally "granted" to B of A while meeting none of the State requirements for receiving the money conveniently overlooked and records Abbott refused released then forgot he had "misplaced". Abbott and Perry "abuse of power" poster boys could be put in the dictionary to define corruption.
Blindfolded overseer AG Abbot then in turn received back $1.4 million of Texas taxpayers' illegally gotten proceeds from leading worldwide criminal Bank of American every consumer's worst friend in thanks to Abbott for his well-practiced fine lack of oversight work and trusting his conveniently forever "turned eye" would continue with him as Governor by B of A giving Abbott back in return Texas taxpayer illegally obtained funds in the form of corrupt Abbot's favorite bribe alternative namely "campaign donating" in their ongoing game of playing "taxpayer musical money."
After Thursday's federal court ruling that Texas voters need not spend their very limited free time running around in a monkey chase to make sure to have their Republican concocted voter IDs to keep the unconstitutionally "unwelcome" who happen to make up a majority of the state from voting while the rich just flash their million mile platinum credit cards and their Mercedes coupe registrations to vote the longtime career big-business tool corrupt "dark money" owned Abbot had his A.G. spokeswoman (no doubt seriously underpaid by Abbott who has zero to say why he pays his men staffers significantly more than women staffers doing the same work especially his mother-in-law whom no doubt he really shortchanges for the TV ads) say that Abbott suddenly would bring his office back to life in one of liar Abbott's biggest whoppers yet.
Corrupt Woman-Hater AG "Dark Money" Greg "Payday" Abbott must be getting awfully fatigued of firing off so much bull he does not believe for a minute that the best so totally unconvincing line that it stood as slap in the face to all good Texans who instead admire a true honest man that Abbott probably unable to say it with a straight or unflinching face actually had to have his underpaid spokeswoman say for him namely that the his office would finally come back to life not to enforce Texas' anti-corruption safeguards or even collect more Abbott "campaign donation" bribes but to immediately appeal the federal court's ruling that the state's voter ID law was unconstitutional because Abbott perjured himself to the world and without any thought disrespected the Court which anyway was Latino by claiming the unconstitutional scrapped voter ID law was necessary to "avoid voter confusion in the upcoming election" which of course is exactly what all that the lying corrupt A.G Abbott actually is betting on for him and his desperate cronies to win. The Ninth Amendment would suppose that most voters are not confused as to who they are even without some GOP ginned up voter ID law making them run in circles to find out what their names are.
It appears that once again the hard-earned much needed taxpayer dollars from good true hard working Texans will once again be wasted away by indicted Perry's now fully exposed conspirator corrupt Woman-Hater A.G. "Dark Money" Greg "Payday" Abbott in both crooks' true form by using Texas taxpayers' taxes directly against taxpayers' best interests. Someone may be confused but it sure is not Texas voters now not burdened with an ID requirement meant to discourage them from voting but rather it is longtime lying creep Abbott who seemingly ratchets up his pathetic lies even to himself with each flaming death spiraling day closer to the end of his and all good honest true hard-working Texans misery.
Interested readers can find more details of these two very recent important court decisions in the New York Times article linked to below.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Ninth Amendment editorial board has observed that in the wake of last week's request that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder launch a federal criminal investigation into whether it was illegal and/or unethical for corrupt Woman-Hating Texas "Dark Money" A.G. Greg "Payday" Abbott to sit by with blindfolds on as the Perry pet "Texas Enterprise Fund" or more appropriately "Perry Payback Taxpayer Slushfund" Abbott oversaw doled out "disbursements" of at least $222 million of Texas taxpayer money without requiring any requests nor applications and/or disbursed it to recipients who "were not required to create new jobs" according to a "scathing" Texas state audit that found these were not "mandated" requirements during the first two years of Perry unilaterally announcing such grants with no prior disclosure claiming they were from his "new deal-making" fund.
Well that much claimed by since indicted lameduck corrupt Republican Idiot Texas Governor Rick "Payback" Perry certainly does seem to be true as he did use the taxpayers money apparently to fund "deal-making" by doling out hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money which Abbott was supposed to but did not oversee so as to recover improperly disbursed funds to "politically connected" companies as to which Abbott later refused to provide any documentation to the Dallas Morning News which he in fact neglected to mention also did not exist. The News was able to report that it had obtained documentation of $1.4 million in bribes in the now familiar form of Abbott "campaign donations" effectively giving Texas taxpayers' money back to Abbott which similar practice of essentially bribe-taking was reported here with named major law firms as well as countless others with contemporaneous pending decisions before long-corrupt A.G. Abbott while also making regular large "campaign donations" to him for essentially non-existent campaigns.
Apparently following one from the Perry playbook exemplified by his fine example to all criminal defendants of smirking in mugshots according to Republican special prosecutor Michael McCrum and immediately leaving the country upon his federal grand jury indictments for two counts of "abuse of power" playing down the prospect of the 99-year prison term he now is facing Abbott's spokesperson Jerry Strickland apparently came out swinging on himself on responding to Attorney General Holder's requested federal criminal investigation of Abbott making what the San Antonio Express-News in the linked-to article below called "his strongest yet defense of both the office and his boss" immediately evading the issue telling lies about Abbott's release of documents and accusing the Democratic Congressional delegation of having "a poor understanding of the law".
It is not known to the editorial board of the Ninth Amendment how qualified Abbott's spokesman Strickland himself is in the law such as having attended law school or his degree of legal scholarship such that he is comfortable accusing Texas' Congressional national lawmakers of "having a poor understanding of the law". It is not known for example if Mr. Strickland reviewed his boss Abbott's earlier statement regarding the law in which Abbott observed that in the Attorney General's office certain matters were not within Abbott's purview because they involved no more than "making legal determinations".
Both in the case of Perry and Abbott the Ninth Amendment has observed most matters that would be of some heightened concerns to persons in such similar positions as having been indicted for two felony counts by a federal grand jury and now facing a trial which just on these counts could result in a 99-year prison term or as in the case of Abbott having a group of members of one's states Congressional delegation requesting of the United States Attorney General that he have the Department of Justice launch a federal criminal and ethics investigation of him for a matter related to the indicted Perry's that on the part of both Republican high office holders such a cavalier attitude may actually be a subterfuge for some greater degree of concern than they are prepared to share at this time although it has been noted that the particularly carefree Perry did greatly buttress his so far Texas taxpayer funded legal defense team with some more $400 an hour lawyers which he even took the extraordinary step of diverting from his own campaign fund rather than his usual course of taking it directly from Texas taxpayer's pockets.
In addition the brave Abbott spokesperson Strickland taking Texas' Congressional nation's lawmakers to task for "having a poor understanding of the law" Abbott's campaign dream team went on to try to discourage voters from even turning out to the polls in classic Republican style by noting that Abbott has over $30 million remaining in his "warchest" ($10 million of which was used to reserve TV time well in advance no doubt for voters to spend more quality in depth time getting to know if Abbott actually has any specific plan to accomplish anything or just to attack Wendy Davis some more) as opposed to Wendy Davis' $5.9 million going into the final month which Abbott's team described as her campaign now"being broke".
They failed to note that since Wendy Davis announced her candidacy she has collected at least as much as Abbott in campaign contributions although his may have been "matched" by more outside donors, doubtless the usual out-of-state suspects and dirty businesses and fugitive payday loan crowd looking for refuge with Abbott running from Utah state and federal investigations. The difference in remaining campaign funds comes from the fact that Abbott has as readers may have guessed spent the past ten years collecting $30 million in bribes in the form of "campaign donations" from entities with matters before corrupt A.G. Abbott despite the fact that Abbott effectively was running for nothing seriously contested and therefore could save up that much for his campaign "warchest" now with who knows how much in leftover bribes perhaps to buy a nice place up in Horseshoe Bay like genius real estate investor Perry.
As for corrupt woman-hating A.G. "dark money" Greg "payday" Abbott it similarly may be worth noting that he is now starting to take a noticeably wider berth from Perry as the two apparently start breaking ranks with Abbott now specifically "blaming" Perry for not informing him of grants Perry was announcing for his "Perry Enterprise Taxpayer Slushfund" in contravention of the law that it be done no later than at the "finalization" of such grants although Abbott now claims Perry knew they had been finalized over a year before and never informed Abbott. Likewise as Abbott scrambled in recent debates from Wendy Davis honing in on the growing scandal Abbott courageously responded that he "had questioned [Perry's] fund since the beginning of his campaign"
The San Antonio Express-News article linked to below unfortunately is one for which readers only can read the first paragraph and see yet another picture of the bespectacled Perry unless readers have a subscription or figure out how to bypass the paper's paywall probably by visiting their favorite search site.
