Texas: Ethics, Smethics

In theory, the Ethics Commission in the state of Texas does great work. In practice, you might as well appoint eight skeevy street hookers to a commission on promoting virginity.

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency" without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday. The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws. "What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash." 

Whole thing here.

Unrelated bonus: When you click on that link, in addition to the article, you may also see a banner ad for a local TV station touting tonight's 10 o'clock news broadcast:

Your childs best friend...
a convicted SEX OFFENDER?
A growing threat in Texas schools. 

While the station's advertising staffers are not too well-versed in the use of the possessive apostrophe, they're absolute masters with type and images. That towheaded, blue-eyed, frecklefaced boy... Those disturbing blood-red 'police file' capitals... It's genius, I tell you. Evil genius, but still. With news reports — and ads — like these, it won't be long before America is every bit as obsessed and hysterical as Great Britain.

Comments

[Robert]

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