No longer his circus, no longer his monkeys

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

As expected, Paul Ryan has now been nominated by the Republicans to be the next Speaker of the House. (Washington Post)

The vote of the full House for Speaker won't happen until Thursday.

There is still time for his own party to derail Ryan and continue the circus show. With another GOP debate coming up, this is going to be fun couple of weeks of GOP watching.

 

[Umbran]

There is still time for his own party to derail Ryan and continue the circus show.

A few hours - they vote tomorrow morning. Technically possible, yes, but unlikely.

 

[tuxgeo]

The House has now passed the budget deal that John Boehner struck with the Democrats. (Link to CNN.)

He goes out as Speaker the way he sometimes ran things before: more Democratic votes in favor than Republican votes.

 

[Kramodlog]

Double the number of Reps who voted for the deal since the last time. Interesting.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

A few hours - they vote tomorrow morning. Technically possible, yes, but unlikely.

True. It's unfortunate they probably don't have the time to derail the Ryan-becoming-House-Speaker train, but that's okay. Fortunately, after Ryan becomes SoH, the GOP will have plenty of time to derail his tenure as SoH. The circus will continue. It can't be stopped.

 

[Ovinomancer]

On a sort of related note, Dennis Hastert pleads guilty to fraud charges in hush-money case.

Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to bank fraud charges connected to $1.7 million he paid to cover up what federal officials said was sexual misconduct dating back to his years as a high school teacher and coach. Prosecutors are recommending up to 6-month prison sentence.[/quote]It's good to see that the GOP follows the principles of good and honest law-abiding citizens who only want to help themselves to some young men.[/QUOTE]

Not to defend whatever Hastert did to need to pay hush money (and the charge he plead to explicitly avoids any mention of what the payments were for), but the law he plead to is one of the worst piles of steaming excrement to ever come out of the War on Drugs. It's almost as bad as USC 18 Section 1001, Lying to Federal Agents, but not quite merely because it has less opportunity to be used.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Not to defend whatever Hastert did to need to pay hush money (and the charge he plead to explicitly avoids any mention of what the payments were for), but the law he plead to is one of the worst piles of steaming excrement to ever come out of the War on Drugs. It's almost as bad as USC 18 Section 1001, Lying to Federal Agents, but not quite merely because it has less opportunity to be used.

Settle down legal-eagle. He paid money to keep kids quite about his secret wrestling techniques. That's against the law. You may not like it. Hastert may not like it. He still broke the law. If it was such a bad law, he could have changed it during his time as Speaker of the House.

 

[tuxgeo]

Paul Ryan has now been elected to become the next Speaker of the House. (Link to Boston Herald.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

On a sort of related note, Dennis Hastert pleads guilty to fraud charges in hush-money case.

Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to bank fraud charges connected to $1.7 million he paid to cover up what federal officials said was sexual misconduct dating back to his years as a high school teacher and coach. Prosecutors are recommending up to 6-month prison sentence.[/quote]It's good to see that the GOP follows the principles of good and honest law-abiding citizens who only want to help themselves to some young men.[/QUOTE]

Settle down legal-eagle. He paid money to keep kids quite about his secret wrestling techniques. That's against the law. You may not like it. Hastert may not like it. He still broke the law. If it was such a bad law, he could have changed it during his time as Speaker of the House.

Um, that's not what he was charged with or what he plead guilty to. He was charged with structuring, and he plead guilty to structuring without having to acknowledge any reason for the structuring.

Structuring, if you're unaware, is the avoidance of required banking reporting of deposits of more than $10,000. It's a requirement of the bank that they must report to the IRS each and every transaction involving an amount of $10,000 or more. The issue is that it is a technical law, and does not require mens rea, or intent to break the law, to be found guilty of it. If you own a small business that does about $9k a day in business, and you make a deposit every day, you can be found guilty of structuring. Further, structuring allows for civil forfeiture, which is another horrid law also from the War on Drugs, that allows the government to seize the money in the accounts used for structuring without conviction or even pressing charges, and keep it with almost no recourse for getting it back.

Both of these laws make sense if you're looking to restricting the drug trade -- you want to catch people trying to wash their money through banks by avoiding the monitoring tripwires, and you don't want all that illegal money to be used as part of the defense or to continue illegal business during the court proceedings. However, as with every law that this broad, it ends up getting used against people that aren't doing anything wrong (the shop owner) and/or against people when you can't find anything actually illegal about what their doing (paying off an extortionist isn't illegal).

So, be educated, and bask in the knowledge that a crappy law was used to punish a man whose major crimes the system ignored. Truly a victory for law!

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Um, that's not what he was charged with or what he plead guilty to. He was charged with structuring, and he plead guilty to structuring without having to acknowledge any reason for the structuring.

Structuring, if you're unaware, is the avoidance of required banking reporting of deposits of more than $10,000.

I'm aware of what structuring is. I just don't care that you don't like it.

It's a requirement of the bank that they must report to the IRS each and every transaction involving an amount of $10,000 or more. The issue is that it is a technical law, and does not require mens rea, or intent to break the law, to be found guilty of it.

It's a tool. It's been shown to work.

If you own a small business

I own a business.

that does about $9k a day in business,

Sometimes a lot more.

and you make a deposit every day, you can be found guilty of structuring. Further, structuring allows for civil forfeiture, which is another horrid law also from the War on Drugs, that allows the government to seize the money in the accounts used for structuring without conviction or even pressing charges, and keep it with almost no recourse for getting it back.

And yet, neither I, nor anyone I know who owns a business, has been convicted or had their assets seized.

Both of these laws make sense if you're looking to restricting the drug trade -- you want to catch people trying to wash their money through banks by avoiding the monitoring tripwires, and you don't want all that illegal money to be used as part of the defense or to continue illegal business during the court proceedings. However, as with every law that this broad, it ends up getting used against people that aren't doing anything wrong (the shop owner) and/or against people when you can't find anything actually illegal about what their doing (paying off an extortionist isn't illegal).

It also helps catch the ex-republican Speaker of the House who helped push the anti-gay agenda across the country.

So, be educated, and bask in the knowledge that a crappy law was used to punish a man whose major crimes the system ignored. Truly a victory for law!

Yes, bask in the knowledge that a "crappy" law has been used to punish a man whose major crimes are ignored. As no other attempts at punishing him for playing hide-the-sausage with high school wrestlers, this is at least something.