Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a potential Republican canidate for president in 2016, was indicted Friday in an investigation into an effort to force a local official out of office, NBC station KXAN of Austin reported. A grand jury in Austin handed up the indictment in a long-running investigation of Perry’s threat to veto state funding to the Travis County Public Integrity Unit unless District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned.
The threat came after Lehmberg pleaded guilty to drunken driving and served a 45-day sentence last year. Perry called on her to step down, but she refused; Perry then vetoed the funding. The grand jury issued indictments (PDF) Friday on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of public servant, both of them felonies.
Thus ends the shortest comeback in history.
And he was so killing it in Iowa.
LOL.
Perry must be taking lessons from Christie.
Cuomo’s in the same boat too. And just like Perry, Cuomo never stood a chance at becoming his party’s nominee.
Oops. Dare we hope that a NJ grand jury will be half as competent and indict Christie on any of his multiple abuses of power?
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Marie, you’re such a kidder. It’s Jersey aka Palermo West.
New Jersey can get a new motto: Jersey, not like Texas; we don’t indict our corrupt governors.
Come to think of it, not like Illinois either. What is it? Three out of four recent governors convicted?
In the ’70s, Maryland had a high rate too, including Spiro T. Agnew.
Don’t forget to wish for indictments of Scott Walker too.
Marie, the same thought flashed across my mind.
Then I thought of the old SNL “Medieval Barber: Theodoric of York” skit:
Theodoric of York: [steps toward the camera] Wait a minute. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I’ve been wrong to blindly follow the medical traditions and superstitions of past centuries. Maybe we barbers should test these assumptions analytically, through experimentation and a “scientific method”. Maybe this scientific method could be extended to other fields of learning: the natural sciences, art, architecture, navigation. Perhaps I could lead the way to a new age, an age of rebirth, a Renaissance! [thinks for a minute] Naaaaaahhh!
Christie’s fat ass can’t get indicted fast enough for me; there are so many possible counts, of which this one seems a slam dunk. But will it happen? Naaaaaahhh!
It’s pretty sad when New Jersey makes Texas look good.
Expect to see Leader Cruz introduce Bill in Congress that all Rep candidates for 2016 Pres who are under indictment can skip Iowa and go straight to the debates.
Up next, McDonnell, Walker, Christie? Leaving Rand & Ted standing. For the moment. There’s your lineup Hillary!
I see an opening for the mormons.
Mittens was already liking his chances against Hillary — Perry’s indictment may enhance his fantasies.
Then you see Ted making a run instead of staying put and controlling the show on the hill?
this is funny.
hilarious
This made my day.
Does anyone believe that this will hurt Perry with the base? They like abuse or they wouldn’t vote Republican.
The base (Al Qaeda) cannot be swayed. Our partying Republican brothers may feel alienated. So on a national level Perry is toast….again.
Karma ate his dogma.
I love it when Boo gives in to the schadenfreude and turns out to be no better than the rest of us. Makes me feel good about myself.
What’ve you got against schadenfreude?
Anything that enjoyable and that inexpensive has to have something wrong with it, no?
that this reduces the crowded field of GOP no hopers who could all be trading insults and spending money against each other instead of aiming their fire at Hillary et al.
The more GOP candidates there are, the longer the primary season goes on, the more money they spend during the primary season, the more they damage each other, the more confused the poor GOP base gets.
The more the general electorate see the GOP leadership as a bunch of law breaking, jaw breaking, corrupt and inept bunch of losers, the better for Dem chances of securing Presidential and Congressional majorities.
Hopefully Perry will stay in the race: after all, as far as the base is concerned, he was only trying to reduce drunken behaviour amongst public officials. Anyone who says different is in favour of drunk driving and nitpicking lawyers.
Yes having a clown car primary can do a lot of damage to the GOP, and very entertaining to those who follow politics and enjoy watching the tea party get loonier-and-loonier. But they are also taking a lot of precautions to avoid such a spectacle: reducing the number of debates, shortening the primary season, etc… That will save on optics, but the reality is that kooky candidates like Bachmann or Herman Cain only received attention because Rmoney was a milquetoast, establishment candidate and lacked the tea party credentials. Fortunately for Mittens, the party coalesced behind him in the end because of their shared hatred of Obama.
But more importantly the GOP only needs 2 serious candidates to do maximum damage: a libertarian/tea partier (Rand) and a GOP establishment candidate (JEB). At the very least, if it comes down to a real horserace between Rand Paul and JEB, then the GOP fracture into 2 parties could be very, very real with massive amounts of money supporting the 3rd Bush and ground support from the TP for Paul .
A Rand for the birds is worth three in the Bushes..
Well done.
Every now and then an event triggers an old tune inside my head. This time, an old Woodie Guthrie.
“So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home,
And I got to be driftin’ along.”
An indictment is not a conviction. I suggest that people cool their schadenfreude cackling until Perry is convicted.
Which he will not be, in my opinion.
It’s Texas so a conviction was never a possibility, but it should destroy his presidential ambitions or, better for us, enhance them just for him to get annihilated in the General. It’s all good for us.
And on what basis do you expect it to destroy his national profile? I think you can argue that it will enhance his national profile with many.
I have no idea how this will work. I suggest that many quit cackling.
It will surely enhance his profile with a portion of his base, but I think his primary opponents will clobber him with it – I don’t think the majority of the base will go for it. If that doesn’t work and he does indeed come out of the primaries as the GOP nominee then the indictments will not play well with the general electorate, and a competent Dem nominee should be able to frame Perry as a lawless governor who is beyond the pale, even for Texas.