He does look like a jackass, Brilliant!
Posted on 07/12/2005 5:06:31 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
A recent National Review article uncovered that Ronnie Earle, Travis County District Attorney, dismissed charges against four of eight companies being prosecuted for corporate donations in Texas. In exchange for dropping the charges, Earle insisted that the companies make $100,000 contributions to an organization in Stanford that wants to keep corporations from being involved in the political process, despite their First Amendment right to do so. While all the companies in question maintain that their actions were legal and that they would be exonerated in court, Earle convinced them that the contributions would be less costly than a long drawn out court battle.
Chairman Benkiser said, “In an ongoing vendetta against Texas businesses and Republicans, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is abusing the very justice system he has sworn and is paid to protect. Demanding that Texas businesses make payments to his pet political causes in return for protection from his prosecutorial abuses reeks of an old-fashion shakedown. It appears that Earle is not as interested in keeping businesses out of the political arena as he is benefiting from them. How his actions have escaped the scrutiny of investigators is a mystery, and Earle needs to resign.”
The most interesting aspect of this is the Texas’ media’s failure to report on this development.
Action Item: Call your local paper and ask why they have not reported on this matter! Read the National Review article
I believe I read that Mrs. Earle once worked in the office of popular (outside TX) former Governor Ann W. Richards.
Duke of Earle Ping!
Oh yeah, like I'm gonna be able to convince the Houston Chronicle to turn on Ronnie Earle. Ronnie attacks Tom DeLay, so he can do no wrong, you see.
Why don't y'all get rid of this jackass?
"...keep corporations from being involved in the political process, despite their First Amendment right to do so."
OK, I just re-read the 1st Amendment and I'd like someone to tell me where it guarantees a corporation a "right" to do anything? The way I read it, the Bill of Rights is for individuals. And, yes, that includes the 2nd Amendment as well.
He does look like a jackass, Brilliant!
You Texans should talk to the State Attorney General or the FBI about prosecuting him for extortion or soliciting a bribe. Talk about corruption.
This has been going on for years. For those who don't know, Austin is in Travis County where Earle is the DA - hence he has been able to build his reputation on tangling with Texas lawmakers.
He's been "in office" according to one source since 1976. Has he been Travis County DA for almost 30 years? Must have started as an assistant.
Austin is extremely liberal so Earle will have to be brought down some other way than at the ballot box. After 30 years that shouldn't be that difficult.
A corporation has long been held to be a citizen for many purposes, not the least of which is to be sued in the state where they "reside."
bump. Whatta crook.
Travis County is a gross little blue pustulous pimple on an otherwise healthy red state. You've got all kinds of Hollywood-style corruption in Austibn.
Wonder who the "organization in Stanford" donates their "political action" funds to...?
Me thinks Ronnie is already toast.
If he indicts DeLay, he better get a conviction, or else he's going to jail himself.
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html
This is the text of the 1886 Supreme Court decision granting corporations the same rights as living persons under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Quoting from David Korten's The Post-Corporate World, Life After Capitalism (pp.185-6):
In 1886, . . . in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitutions affords to any person. Because the Constitution makes no mention of corporations, it is a fairly clear case of the Court's taking it upon itself to rewrite the Constitution.
Far more remarkable, however, is that the doctrine of corporate personhood, which subsequently became a cornerstone of corporate law, was introduced into this 1886 decision without argument. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of arguement in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.
Travis county was the one "Central Texas county" that voted for the john/john ticket last Nov. Too many UT libs in the area.
The definition of a Corportation in Webster's New World Dictionary is as follows:
a group of people who get a charter granting them as a body certain of the legal rights of a single individual.
If you ask a lawyer what a corporation is, the most common answer will be "a legally created person".
It is a lot easier to understand the constitution if you know what words mean. Your big problem is you do not know the definition of a corporation. A corportation IS an individual.
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