Texas GOP Promises To Stop Committing Crimes

The Texas Republican Party has struck what might be the sweetest deal in the criminal justice system since Al Capone went to jail for income tax evasion:

The Republican Party of Texas avoided prosecution Thursday by agreeing to stop using corporate money in several ways being investigated by Travis County Attorney David Escamilla.

Escamilla's investigation, which is similar to allegations being pursued by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and the Texas Association of Business, is put on hold through March 31, 2007. In return, the Republican Party agrees to stop using corporate money the way it did during the 2002 election. The party's administrative expenses spiked five-fold to about $5.6 million that year.

State law generally prohibits corporate money being spent in connection with campaigns. The law allows political parities to spend corporate money to run their conventions and on administrative overhead. Escamilla had studied some 27,000 GOP documents, but his investigation in the end focused on three instances of using corporate money. [Austin American Statesman

Here's how this works: If the Republicans promise to stop breaking the laws they broke in 2002, the DA won't prosecute them for the 2002 infractions until after the 2006 elections.
By Lindsay Beyerstein of

What a fool. When the first question most people ask is why isn't he in a jail cell, I think his credibility is pretty shot. I thought he wasn't going to comment on the story again. Here's his latest column. "What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'

Larry Johnson replies in No Quarter: ... He admits that he was told revealing Plame's identity would cause "difficulties". CIA spokesmen where in the position of having to protect a sensitive, covert asset and this joke of a journalist did not appreciate that creating difficulties for an intelligence agency in a time of war is a bad thing?...read on

AmericaBlog says" He outs an undercover agent....once again doing the dirty work for Karl Rove and Bush, and somehow he's the victim".

The Booman Trubune has a lenghty diary on Novie and Johnson. No-Yak Novak Yammers; Larry Johnson Replies

Talk Left writes: Novak Breaks His Silence : Note that he says Plame's identity "could be" found in Who's Who. He doesn't say that's where he got it. He acknowledges asking Harlow about her. But from whom did he hear it in the first place? Will Novak's vanity in writing this piece come back to bite him? ...read on

Robert Downey Jr. makes it back form drug addiction and jail to release his first record entitled "The Futurist"

Here's a video clip of him singing "Broken" from his appearance on "Oprah."

Video

His vocals sound great and I'm happy to see him turn his life around so completely!

Click here to see the Video (Updated)

Raw Story: (h/t Existentialist Cowboy)

Hope Steffey's night started with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the sheriff's deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and recently released video won’t help their case.

Steffey's ordeal with the Stark County sheriff's deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey's driver's license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister's license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That's when the situation became complicated. Read on...

Bad Astronomer: Some Creationists are still dangerous even when they're in jail for tax evasion.

Mother Jones: Laura Rozen War and Piece interviews journalist Douglas Farah, co-author of a new book on Viktor Bout Farah tells how the Tajik-born arms dealer forged a lucrative career skirting U.N. embargoes to sell weapons and air transport services to warlords and despots—not to mention the U.S. military and its contractors in Iraq.

Truly Equal: Iraqi refugees forced into prostitution.

James Fallows: The Iraq speeches, take two...

Balloon Juice: John Cole provides a dandy analysis of the latest faux controversy roiling wingnuttia...

guest round-up by Blue Gal.

Via The Raw Story:

As if it wasn't bad enough for the Bush Administration already, contempt charges are flying in Montana.The Administration's top forestry official has been ordered to explain why the US Forest Service failed to analyze the environmental impact of dropping a fish-killing flame retardant on wildfires -- or face contempt of court.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey would then face jail unless the Forest Service assented to a court order enjoining the environmental review.

"Noting that Rey had blocked implementation of an earlier review, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Malloy ordered Rey to appear in his court Oct. 15 unless the Forest Service completes the analysis before that time," Associated Press reporter Jeff Barnard wrote.

Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh told AP the agency was working on the analysis, but couldn't say if the Secretary would meet the deadline; Rey did not respond to requests for comment. Read more...

KEYEtv.com (CBS): (h/t JazzTrombone)

A 74-year-old retired mathematician who sells anti-Bush buttons at a Maryland farmers' market has become a symbol of free speech to some people. Others say Alan McConnell is a nuisance.

McConnell was at the market in Kensington as usual yesterday, selling buttons that say "Impeach Him" He has sold the $1 buttons for months; he told The Washington Post he uses the money earned to pay for "Impeach Them Both" yard signs.

Town officials had previously warned McConnell about peddling his political wares at the market (he is accused of being "aggressive" in his pitch), and had cited him for selling merchandise without a proper permit.

McConnell was also warned that he would be arrested if he returned to the market, even though it is public property.

McConnell showed up this weekend, when police arrested him and forcibly carried him to a squad car. A crowd of about 40 McConnell supporters booed the arrest, chanting "Free speech!"

McConnell was charged with trespassing; he faces 90 days in jail and a $500 fine

Officials said kicking him out has nothing to do with politics but with fears that the atmosphere fostered by McConnell and his supporters would create a safety hazard. (Mayor Peter Fosselman even cancelled last Saturday's market.)

It's getting harder and harder to recognize this country some days...

 It's just hitting CNN and MSNBC. Bush just obstructed justice.

Download | play Download | play

The official said Bush "has commuted the prison sentence ... leaving intact the probation and fines handed down by the court.""That means he is not going to jail," the official said.

The rule of law Conservatives are a joke..

The Bush Statement:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting….

What crap. Marcy Wheeler:

Well, George did it. Made sure that Scooter wouldn’t flip rather than do jail time. He commuted Libby’s sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth.This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.

The Sunday Talking Head line-up is ready for perusal. Thought I'd kick off everyone's morning today with a little Squeeze and some Black Coffee In Bed.

Lots of Tony Snow — lots and lots and lots. The Colin Powell interview on Meet the Press could be interesting - or nothing but a lot of hot air and equivications. I’m betting on the latter, but will be very happy indeed if it is the former because who couldn’t use a bit of truth on a Sunday morning? It would be a nice change from the usual, anyway.

Bob Geiger has some spot-on political cartoons ready for the browsing — my personal favorite is the pass off of the “go directly to jail card.” So, what's catching your eye on the blogs or in the news this morning?

The Falwell Bomber was only the latest....Rick Perlstein:

(It was only later, when I stared studying Watergate, when I wondered about the moral compass of a movement that would elevate as a spokesman a man who was literally thrown in jail for his eagerness to commit violence in service to subversion to the Constitution.) I felt, at a certain point, that something very ugly would soon happen.

Something ugly did soon happen: Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. What is the line between vigilence and paranoia? I really don't know. I only know this, to return to my original point: it's far past the time for the media to start tracking these arrests as a trend—before the next arrest comes post-explosion, not pre.

Digby: I predict that we are going to see a remarkable resurgence of rightwing violence if the Democrats take full control of the government.

How quickly Eric Rudolph has been forgotten.