But how do you do it? Who will pay for it?
WAR is a racket. It always has been...
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...
Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes... - Major Gen. Smedley Butler, former commandant of the U.S. Marines
Return with us to the days of yesteryear.
You've got to be at least 50-60 years of age to remember it.
There was a time when the oil companies marketed their own
motor fuels, products which they found, extracted, refined
and furnished, along with the kind of service found today
only in garages, quick oil change stations and tire shops.
Today's motorists buy and dispense their own gasoline and
diesel from harrassed convenience store clerks who have
trouble remembering if they turned the pump on, can't make
change and have no idea where you can get a flat fixed or a
balky engine tuned up.
Naturally, they work part time for minimum wage. They get no
benefits.
Just ask them. They'll be glad to tell you.
Up until 1969, purveyors of happy motoring had a good reason
to go all out for the motorists' dollar and their custom in
high octane leaded fuel that made enormous cars purr at
anywhere from 70 to 100 miles per hour on fabulously smooth
highways. Use taxes were collected at the pump, apportioned
back to the states in Washington or at the state capitals.
All this was done at a price of less than half a dollar a
gallon.
Today, at nearly $3 per gallon, sometimes almost $4,
consumers pay much higher use taxes, chug along in tiny cars
on tiny wheels and tires and brave rutted, collapsing roads
and bridges that would be unsatisfactory and unsafe bridle
paths for the huge iron monsters of the fifties and sixties.
Outside the exurbia of the Bos-Wash corridor and the
spaghetti bowls of Chicagoland, and the Great Lakes routes
to Erie and Buffalo, toll roads and bridges were few.
Who needed it?
Anyone born after the time when Elvis bought his first pink
Cadillac and Maybelleine just could not be true just do not
remember what it was like for a squad of four dudes to
descend on a car to check the oil and other fluids under the
hood, air up the tires and whisk out the floorboards,
emptying ashtrays and polishing windshields and mirrors -
all of this done under the supervision of a smiling man in
uniform who happily pointed out worn fan belts and knots on
tires, the need for an oil change or a dirty air filter.
He took the money or the credit card to the office, produced
a credit slip or the change and walked it back out to the
car. They called him the driveway salesman.
Why did petroleum marketing change so suddenly?
Actually, it did not change all that quickly. Like most
government actions it was all done on kind of a five year
targeting plan.
The full change didn't come in until the year 1975. So
between the years 1969 when Colonel Muamar Quadafi
nationalized American oil fields in Libya and 1974 when the
Arab oil embargo choked the life out of American mobility,
events of a very fundamental and very powerful nature took
place.
The oil depletion tax allowance was reduced from 27.5
percent on a "percentage depletion" schedule to 22 percent.
Not long after, it was reduced to 15 percent, figured on
much more stringent requirments that result in much, much
higher corporate income tax.
Prior to this sea change, there was no limit on the
cumulative percentage depletion that could be taken over the
life of an oil property.
This state of affairs persisted for fifty years because of
the provisions of The Revenue Act of 1924.
It led to "vertical integration" of petroleum corporations
whereby they owned the leases, controlled the transporation
systems such as rail cars and pipelines, the refineries, and
the filling stations. The law gave oil firms an incentive to
charge a very high internal transfer price for the oil so
that the firm could earn a large allowance, depending on the
value of the crude oil sold to its own refining and
marketing companies.
That came to an end in 1974, the year the OPEC nations put
the squeeze on the American motorist by shutting down and
severely limiting the amount of petroleum they were willing
to ship. Today's newly minted grandmas and grandpas will
recall slowly creeping lines of cars that stretched around
blocks and blocks of American cities awaiting the chance to
put a measly ten bucks' worth in that tiger's tank.
It was no longer economically feasible to raise domestic
American crude above the wellhead and send it on its merry
way to marketers. Consequently, when the depreciation
schedule ran out on refining plants, there was no need to
build new ones.
There is no real shortage of product; there is a shortage of
refining capacity, which leads to a shortage of product.
On another accounting schedule, that of "cost depletion,"
the calculations were pretty much the same as in any other
ordinary depreciation of a piece of equipment or - let's say
- a refinery.
It's 6 one way, half a dozen the other.
As a result, the cost of doing business has grown
exponentially due to a relentless and unremitting onslaught
of terror carried out on the streets of mideastern cities
from Lebanon and Israel to Iran and all points in between,
including the financial district of Manhattan, London,
Paris, Madrid, Rome, Munich, Tokyo and any place else where
it's to the advantage of certain parties to create confusion
and disrupt business as usual.
Who provides the wherewithal for this new and increased cost
of doing business?
Why, the American taxpayers, that's who.
It costs big bucks to maintain carrier battle groups, their
complements of officers and enlisted men on flat tops,
destroyers and fast frigates, submarines, and aviation
squadrons of jets, supply transport planes, helicopters,
pilots, mechanics, fuel passers, aviation boatswain's mates,
and the ordnancemen who hoist the rockets and bombs and
attache them to the wings those supersonic, kerosene-burning
jet aircraft.
Then there are the attack and intercontinental missile-
bearing submarines that cruise the depths under the keels of
the vessels in the battle groups, most of them powered by
nuclear reactors, as are many of the larger the ships above
them.
Add to that the cost of Marine divisions, Armies, Air Force
squadrons, spies paid by the CIA, and the communications
technicians and construction and transportation
professionals who operate on a cost plus, often no-bid
basis.
Such a deal.
Some of the savvy silver-haired moms and pops from that most
flamboyant OPEC nation of all - Texas, which, they say in
the tourism office, is like a whole other country - are
starting to wonder aloud what it would cost to restore the
independent oil operators who neither refine, nor import
crude petroleum back their full schedule oil depletion tax
allowances at a rate acceptable to them and forego the cost
of maintaining the huge apparatus that has stood watch over
the sources of petroleum used by American and European
refiners since the mid-seventies while eschewing the
offshore Louisiana and Texas fields, the east Texas fields
around Kilgore and Mexia, the Permian Basin, the Trans-
Pecos, the Salt Creek of Wyoming, the Montana Overthrust
Belt, Bakersfield and Ventura, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, New
Mexico, Arkansas...
Though any tax attorney or accountant will argue until he's
blue in the face that it's actually a lot more complicated
than this, here is basically how it works.
U.S. tax law provides for so-called depletion allowances for
mineral deposits and standing timber used in the creation of
income. These allowances were instituted by the Revenue Act
of 1913 and derive from the Sixteenth Amendment, which
allows the feeral government to tax income, but not capital.
The Revenue Act of 1926 allows owners or operators of
mineral properties to calculate depleiton as a percentage of
gross income at the applicable rate, chopped off the top.
New revisions to the code effective in 2001, allow the
depletion allowance to be calculated on mineral deposits on
either a cost or a percentage basis.
Since 1975, integrated producers have not been allowed to
calculate oil and gas depletion on a percentage basis.
The law requires that timber depletion must be calculated on
a cost basis. After all, forests are renewable. Oil is
available only in finite quantities, unless you have time to
wait around from one geological epoch to another.
Cost accounting in the former scenario is as follows:
Let's say an oil corporation has sunk $2 million into a
property and is busy pumping and shipping crude.
The gross earnings are a return on the investment,
proportionate segments of which are assigned on a yearly
basis. Cost depletion permits yearly deductions for the
receipt of $2 million tax-free over a period of the duration
of time it is feasible to pump crude out of the well.
A natural deposit, the law allows the owner to separate it
product into recoverable units and those units to be
multiplied by the number of units sold annually.
The result is the depletion reduction permitted for that
year.
House of Representatives candidates vying for the nomination
of their party or incumbents seeking re-election in the
general election on November 2 would do well to be able to
answer questions about a restoration of the full range of
the depletion tax allowance on the national economy.
The American Petroleum Institute has lists of economists who
are able to and do perform econometric studies of the impact
on local economies as to jobs, taxes, domestic spending and
mortgage lending.
Oil field jobs in the domestic market pay anywhere from
$4,000 to $5,000 per month for floor and derrick hands,
slightly less for roustabouts, laborers, drivers and
offshore cooks, crane operators, tankermen and the like.
Tool pushers, drillers, company men and mud engineers make
quite a bit more, as do geologists, accountants and
operations and marketing executives.
The working men and women of the OPEC region of Texas,
Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma are ready and willing to go
back to work for a good living wage.
Representative Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., introduced
legislation to raise the depletion tax allowance from 15
percent to 27.5 percent in fiscal year 1986. The
Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated at the
time that the measure would have provided almost $1.1
billion in revenue.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
De-Classed Papers Show Kissinger Chose Terror
Secretary of State Reversed U.S. Policy On "Condor" Ops
As the sedan entered Sheridan Circle on Massachusetts Avenue
in Washington, D.C., a bomb ripped it in half, instantly
incinerating two of the people inside.
The date was September 21, 1976, just five days after
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reversed a U.S. demarche
that would have called for U.S. Ambassadors to warn the
military governments of such "Condor" states as Chile,
Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil against all such acts of
international terror.
Instead, Mr. Kissinger ordered ambassadors not to interfere
in the affairs of the nations so affected, an act which
allegedly led to literally hundreds of such political
assassinations worldwide, according to documents
declassified under the Freedom of Information Act on
Saturday.
The implication is that Mr. Kissinger complied in a course
of U.S. actions that condoned terrorism by right wing
military juntas who sought to remove former left wing
antagonists hiding in the U.S. and other nations.
The bombing killed Orlando Letelier, former Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defense during the Salvador
Allende Administration of Chile, and his U.S. Assistant,
Ronni Moffitt. Her husband, Michael, survived.
Mr. Letelier, an economist by training with extensive
experience in the international economics of copper
production, was operating in exile from the troubled nation
of Chile following the coup d'etat that resulted in the
violent death of Mr. Allende as the Presidential Palace and
the "disappearances" of thousands upon thousands of
socialists following the military takeover by General
Augusto Pinochet.
Authorities prosecuted and convicted several people for the
murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, among them
Michael Townley, who formerly worked for the CIA.
On August 30, Mr. Harry Schlaudeman, assistant secretary for
Inter-American Affairs, wrote a memo stating, in part, "What
we are trying to head off is a series of international
murders that could do serious damage to the international
status and reputation of the countries involved."
Mr. Kissinger replied on September 16, in a cable that
stated he "has instructed that no further action be taken on
this matter."
According to Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst of the
National Security Archives and author of "The Pinochet File:
A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability," the
cable, which had been missing for years, gives scholars and
historians a smoking gun at which to point for proof of U.S.
complicity in the matter.
"We know now what hapened: The State Department initiated a
timely effort to thwart a 'Murder Inc.' in the Southern
Cone, and Kissinger, without explanation, aborted it...The
Kissinger cancellation on warning the Condor nations
prevented the delivery of a diplomatic protest that
conceivably could have deterred an act of terrorism in
Washington, D.C."
Many experts consider the bombing of Mr. Letelier's
automobile to have been the single worst act of domestic
terror prior to the attacks of 9/11, 2001, on the World
Trade Center and The Pentagon.
Documentation of the entire affair is to be found at
http://www.nsarchive.org
The National Security Archive is a non-governmental research
center and library located at George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. It files thousands of FOIA requests and
often files suit against various government departments for
the public release of historic documents.
As the sedan entered Sheridan Circle on Massachusetts Avenue
in Washington, D.C., a bomb ripped it in half, instantly
incinerating two of the people inside.
The date was September 21, 1976, just five days after
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reversed a U.S. demarche
that would have called for U.S. Ambassadors to warn the
military governments of such "Condor" states as Chile,
Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil against all such acts of
international terror.
Instead, Mr. Kissinger ordered ambassadors not to interfere
in the affairs of the nations so affected, an act which
allegedly led to literally hundreds of such political
assassinations worldwide, according to documents
declassified under the Freedom of Information Act on
Saturday.
The implication is that Mr. Kissinger complied in a course
of U.S. actions that condoned terrorism by right wing
military juntas who sought to remove former left wing
antagonists hiding in the U.S. and other nations.
The bombing killed Orlando Letelier, former Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defense during the Salvador
Allende Administration of Chile, and his U.S. Assistant,
Ronni Moffitt. Her husband, Michael, survived.
Mr. Letelier, an economist by training with extensive
experience in the international economics of copper
production, was operating in exile from the troubled nation
of Chile following the coup d'etat that resulted in the
violent death of Mr. Allende as the Presidential Palace and
the "disappearances" of thousands upon thousands of
socialists following the military takeover by General
Augusto Pinochet.
Authorities prosecuted and convicted several people for the
murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, among them
Michael Townley, who formerly worked for the CIA.
On August 30, Mr. Harry Schlaudeman, assistant secretary for
Inter-American Affairs, wrote a memo stating, in part, "What
we are trying to head off is a series of international
murders that could do serious damage to the international
status and reputation of the countries involved."
Mr. Kissinger replied on September 16, in a cable that
stated he "has instructed that no further action be taken on
this matter."
According to Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst of the
National Security Archives and author of "The Pinochet File:
A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability," the
cable, which had been missing for years, gives scholars and
historians a smoking gun at which to point for proof of U.S.
complicity in the matter.
"We know now what hapened: The State Department initiated a
timely effort to thwart a 'Murder Inc.' in the Southern
Cone, and Kissinger, without explanation, aborted it...The
Kissinger cancellation on warning the Condor nations
prevented the delivery of a diplomatic protest that
conceivably could have deterred an act of terrorism in
Washington, D.C."
Many experts consider the bombing of Mr. Letelier's
automobile to have been the single worst act of domestic
terror prior to the attacks of 9/11, 2001, on the World
Trade Center and The Pentagon.
Documentation of the entire affair is to be found at
http://www.nsarchive.org
The National Security Archive is a non-governmental research
center and library located at George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. It files thousands of FOIA requests and
often files suit against various government departments for
the public release of historic documents.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Billy Joe Shaver Acquitted of Deadly Assault!
Jurors obviously like to see a man act like a man
"Friend, I can get more women than a passenger train."
- Billy Joe Shaver
In a unanimous verdict, the 8-man, 4-woman jury that heard
the case for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against
outlaw singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver acquitted him.
The Legendary learned of the verdict from one of the iconic
outlaw's many friends who called to say that the jurors
deliberated for about an hour and a half, asking twice to
review exhibits entered into evidence. First, they asked to
see pictures, then they asked for the frame and cylinder of
the tiny single action North American Arms .22 caliber
revolver he used to shoot Billy Coker in the face.
The shameful truth is that 54th District Judge Matt Johnson
ejected The Legendary from the courtroom when he laughed too
loudly at one of Mr. Shaver's rejoinders to prosecutor Beth
Toben as she obstinately hammered at his reputation through
impertinent and hostile, repetitive questions about his
status as an outlaw writer of country ballads - a man from a
gallery of honky tonk heroes who have been placed outside
the protections of conventional society.
The prosecutor asked earlier, "You had the wrong phrase, but
you wrote the song," in a line of questioning his famed
Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin objected to as
argumentative and repetitive - irrelevant.
Her affect and demeanor was quite demeaning, to say the
least.
Another man at that point made a comment, "Oh, woman, go on,
now..."
After all, the matter goes to the First Amendment rights to
freely express oneself. Mr. Shaver expresses himself as an
outlaw. What of it?
The judge had him ejected.
A few minutes later, she began to question why Mr. Shaver
didn't leave instead of taking up the challenge to Mr.
Coker's aggressive and rude behavior in brandishing a deadly
knife and stirring peoples' drinks with it.
"A chickenshit would have left," he said.
She then began to give him the blues about her speculation
that he and his ex-wife Wanda had been fighting and he
wanted her to leave with him instead of talking to Billy
Coker, who said to him, "We're trying to talk. Shut the fuck
up!"
He explained that he had spent a lifetime in beer joints and
he knows when to leave before trouble starts.
In this case, however, trouble had already started because
Mr. Coker was berating her over the death by suicide of his
cousin, her former husband, who shot himself with his own
gun. Why didn't he simply go the other direction instead
of out the back door with Coker?
"No, ma'am, then he would have cut me."
Was the source of the confict really between he and Wanda?
He replied, "Friend, I can get more women than a passenger
train." The crowded courtroom burst into merriment.
Mr. Shaver is 70 years of age.
It was when the prosecutor began to question him about an
autobiographical book he co-authored with Brad Reagan, Honky
Tonk Hero, University of Texas Press, 2005, that The
Legendary lost momentary cabin pressure and laughed too
loudly.
"The truth is, Mr. Shaver, you've had a reputation all your
life as an outlaw."
"No, ma'am, I wish I had a book about you. I could
really..."
The Legendary could not help himself. His laughter was
loud, abrupt, and voluble. He was not alone. The judge,
visibly upset with The Legendary, ordered his immediate
ouster.
Oh, well, it was lunch time, anyway, and Tommy Witherspoon
of the Waco "Tribune-Herald" has constantly reminded The
Legendary for a week that "This is my house," meaning the
McLennan County Courthouse. "If I'd known who you were, I
would have had you run off immediately," he said, more than
once.
And it occurs to The Legendary that Ms. Toben in her own way
was reacting as an outlaw woman, that deadliest of creatures
who knows how to manipulate outlaw men to her best advantage
through her actions and her wily behavior. Witnesseth, she
is a female professional operating in the harsh and bruising
environment of criminal law as a prosecutor - to great
effect. Ms. Toben is a force to be reckoned with.
She was fully prepared to seek a conviction against the
aging troubador that could very well have seen him spending
the last of his days in the penitentiary because he simply
would not retreat in the face of aggression toward his
woman.
Whew.
Enough said.
The Legendary had a chance to observe Mr. Shaver very
closely during his trial. He carried a medicine bag with
him every day in which he concealed assorted objects he used
as power fetishes, handling them, then going into periods of
trance-like meditation, eyes closed.
There was an eagle feather, a short string of multi-colored
beads, various small objects that he fondled and rubbed in
his mangled right hand, the one injured horribly in a
sawmill accident.
He was not really asleep during the afternoons. He was
resting his eyes and power napping the way elderly gentlemen
do, men such as Mr. Willie Nelson, who sat in the courtroom
with his eyes closed. There is no telling where
his warrior soul transported Himself during those periods.
Mr. Shaver's father was a Blackfoot Sioux, obviously a breed
with a hatchet nose and with Norman and Anglo Saxon
features. He had a fearsome reputation as a bootlegger and
bare knuckle fighter around the Navarro County seat of
Corsicana.
At one point, The Legendary joined him in meditation and he
snapped wide awake, giving me a piercing look with his
ultra-blue eyes. He asked, "Are you doing okay?"
I replied, "Yes, Mr. Shaver, I'm doing fine. And so are
you, sir. So are you. Believe it."
Through the worst of it all, he kept his nerve, even when
the prosecutor quizzed him about serious neck injry gotten
in an Indian leg wrestling match at The Bellagio in Las
Vegas during a bacchanal arranged by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top
when he and Wanda Shaver re-did their wedding vows.
Obviously, these attacks on his credibility did not the
least bit of good with the jury of his peers. The men and
women who judged him found that the State of Texas had
failed to prove that he was not in fear for his life when he
acted to defend himself and his wife. His use of deadly
force, therefore, was justified, the point upon which his
attorney, Dick DeGuerin, hammered constantly through ques-
tioning of witnesses, objections and implication.
He got that point on the record is numerous ways.
Mr. Shaver's trials are not completely over.
He still faces a Class C felony charge of carrying a firearm
on premises licensed to sell alcoholic beverages that
derives more than 51 percent of its gross revenue from on-
premises sales of the poteen while licensed to carry a con-
cealed handgun.
He was bound over for trial on the cause on a $7,500
appearance bond.
If convicted, he is eligible for probation because he has
never before been convicted of a felony crime.
"And a man is a man for a'that," saith Bonnie Robert Burns,
poet laureate of Scotland and the first Grand Master of
Scottish Freemasons.
Something ancient and honorable was reaffirmed in Six
Shooter Junction today.
So mote it be.
Depend upon it.
Believe it.
I have spoken. It is my humble prayer. I am sincere.
- The Legendary
"Friend, I can get more women than a passenger train."
- Billy Joe Shaver
In a unanimous verdict, the 8-man, 4-woman jury that heard
the case for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against
outlaw singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver acquitted him.
The Legendary learned of the verdict from one of the iconic
outlaw's many friends who called to say that the jurors
deliberated for about an hour and a half, asking twice to
review exhibits entered into evidence. First, they asked to
see pictures, then they asked for the frame and cylinder of
the tiny single action North American Arms .22 caliber
revolver he used to shoot Billy Coker in the face.
The shameful truth is that 54th District Judge Matt Johnson
ejected The Legendary from the courtroom when he laughed too
loudly at one of Mr. Shaver's rejoinders to prosecutor Beth
Toben as she obstinately hammered at his reputation through
impertinent and hostile, repetitive questions about his
status as an outlaw writer of country ballads - a man from a
gallery of honky tonk heroes who have been placed outside
the protections of conventional society.
The prosecutor asked earlier, "You had the wrong phrase, but
you wrote the song," in a line of questioning his famed
Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin objected to as
argumentative and repetitive - irrelevant.
Her affect and demeanor was quite demeaning, to say the
least.
Another man at that point made a comment, "Oh, woman, go on,
now..."
After all, the matter goes to the First Amendment rights to
freely express oneself. Mr. Shaver expresses himself as an
outlaw. What of it?
The judge had him ejected.
A few minutes later, she began to question why Mr. Shaver
didn't leave instead of taking up the challenge to Mr.
Coker's aggressive and rude behavior in brandishing a deadly
knife and stirring peoples' drinks with it.
"A chickenshit would have left," he said.
She then began to give him the blues about her speculation
that he and his ex-wife Wanda had been fighting and he
wanted her to leave with him instead of talking to Billy
Coker, who said to him, "We're trying to talk. Shut the fuck
up!"
He explained that he had spent a lifetime in beer joints and
he knows when to leave before trouble starts.
In this case, however, trouble had already started because
Mr. Coker was berating her over the death by suicide of his
cousin, her former husband, who shot himself with his own
gun. Why didn't he simply go the other direction instead
of out the back door with Coker?
"No, ma'am, then he would have cut me."
Was the source of the confict really between he and Wanda?
He replied, "Friend, I can get more women than a passenger
train." The crowded courtroom burst into merriment.
Mr. Shaver is 70 years of age.
It was when the prosecutor began to question him about an
autobiographical book he co-authored with Brad Reagan, Honky
Tonk Hero, University of Texas Press, 2005, that The
Legendary lost momentary cabin pressure and laughed too
loudly.
"The truth is, Mr. Shaver, you've had a reputation all your
life as an outlaw."
"No, ma'am, I wish I had a book about you. I could
really..."
The Legendary could not help himself. His laughter was
loud, abrupt, and voluble. He was not alone. The judge,
visibly upset with The Legendary, ordered his immediate
ouster.
Oh, well, it was lunch time, anyway, and Tommy Witherspoon
of the Waco "Tribune-Herald" has constantly reminded The
Legendary for a week that "This is my house," meaning the
McLennan County Courthouse. "If I'd known who you were, I
would have had you run off immediately," he said, more than
once.
And it occurs to The Legendary that Ms. Toben in her own way
was reacting as an outlaw woman, that deadliest of creatures
who knows how to manipulate outlaw men to her best advantage
through her actions and her wily behavior. Witnesseth, she
is a female professional operating in the harsh and bruising
environment of criminal law as a prosecutor - to great
effect. Ms. Toben is a force to be reckoned with.
She was fully prepared to seek a conviction against the
aging troubador that could very well have seen him spending
the last of his days in the penitentiary because he simply
would not retreat in the face of aggression toward his
woman.
Whew.
Enough said.
The Legendary had a chance to observe Mr. Shaver very
closely during his trial. He carried a medicine bag with
him every day in which he concealed assorted objects he used
as power fetishes, handling them, then going into periods of
trance-like meditation, eyes closed.
There was an eagle feather, a short string of multi-colored
beads, various small objects that he fondled and rubbed in
his mangled right hand, the one injured horribly in a
sawmill accident.
He was not really asleep during the afternoons. He was
resting his eyes and power napping the way elderly gentlemen
do, men such as Mr. Willie Nelson, who sat in the courtroom
with his eyes closed. There is no telling where
his warrior soul transported Himself during those periods.
Mr. Shaver's father was a Blackfoot Sioux, obviously a breed
with a hatchet nose and with Norman and Anglo Saxon
features. He had a fearsome reputation as a bootlegger and
bare knuckle fighter around the Navarro County seat of
Corsicana.
At one point, The Legendary joined him in meditation and he
snapped wide awake, giving me a piercing look with his
ultra-blue eyes. He asked, "Are you doing okay?"
I replied, "Yes, Mr. Shaver, I'm doing fine. And so are
you, sir. So are you. Believe it."
Through the worst of it all, he kept his nerve, even when
the prosecutor quizzed him about serious neck injry gotten
in an Indian leg wrestling match at The Bellagio in Las
Vegas during a bacchanal arranged by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top
when he and Wanda Shaver re-did their wedding vows.
Obviously, these attacks on his credibility did not the
least bit of good with the jury of his peers. The men and
women who judged him found that the State of Texas had
failed to prove that he was not in fear for his life when he
acted to defend himself and his wife. His use of deadly
force, therefore, was justified, the point upon which his
attorney, Dick DeGuerin, hammered constantly through ques-
tioning of witnesses, objections and implication.
He got that point on the record is numerous ways.
Mr. Shaver's trials are not completely over.
He still faces a Class C felony charge of carrying a firearm
on premises licensed to sell alcoholic beverages that
derives more than 51 percent of its gross revenue from on-
premises sales of the poteen while licensed to carry a con-
cealed handgun.
He was bound over for trial on the cause on a $7,500
appearance bond.
If convicted, he is eligible for probation because he has
never before been convicted of a felony crime.
"And a man is a man for a'that," saith Bonnie Robert Burns,
poet laureate of Scotland and the first Grand Master of
Scottish Freemasons.
Something ancient and honorable was reaffirmed in Six
Shooter Junction today.
So mote it be.
Depend upon it.
Believe it.
I have spoken. It is my humble prayer. I am sincere.
- The Legendary
True Nature of Outlawry Exposed in Shaver Trial
Shooting begs question of a man's relation to his government
"I don't much like words; I very much prefer pictures to words,
any day."
- an outlaw singer-songwriter working a crossword puzzle
Pipes skirled and whistles keened in the ears attached to
the mind's eye on the light and variable winds of April as
prosecutors questioned witnesses who saw what happened when
outlaw legend Billy Joe Shaver shot a man in the face for
his abuse of his wife and himself as they partied in an I-35
road house way back on April Fool's Day Eve, March 31, 2007.
As Prosecutor Beth Toben asked Wanda Shaver argumentative
and repetitive questions, belaboring the point of what did
and didn't happen and when it did, Judge Matt Johnson
repeatedly sustained objections made by Mr. Shaver's defense
counsel, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, as sharp a cookie as ever
cut the edge.
In fact, it was Ms. Toben who showed the truly ugly face of
state authority when she sought to have one of Mr. Shaver's
most trusted friends ousted from the courtroom where he sat
in quiet observation.
Willie Nelson took time out to support Mr. Shaver in his
hour of need and the prosecutor made a motion to have him
removed from the courtroom - as a potential witness for the
state.
Later, when Mr. Nelson stepped outside to go to the
restroom, she had him served with a subpoena, something that
would have precluded his attendance in open court, except
for his testimony, and then only if called.
Happily, the judge waived the exclusionary rule and allowed
him to stay. After all, big star or not, he is still a
human being who is allowed to be concerned about his
friends.
He is expected to return and serve as a character witness,
to tell the jurors he knows Mr. Shaver as a peaceful man.
That's when another beloved celebrity dear to Texas hearts
showed himself. Veteran character actor, producer and
director Robert Duvall entered the rotunda of the courthouse
and told news reporters and television cameramen that he was
not in town to give media interviews, only to stand by for
his friend Billy Joe Shaver and tell the world that he is
not a bad man.
While he was seated in the court, octogenarian Gloria
Tambling, owner of Papa Joe's Texas Saloon where Mr. Shaver
shot Billy Coker in the face, said as her friend pushed her
wheelchair out of the courtroom, "There's Joe McCall!"
In the room where you could have cut the tension with a
lock-blade gravity knife all morning, laughter exploded at
the remark.
She had mistaken Mr. Duvall for the fabled Captain Woodrow
Call of the Texas Rangers, a role played by Tommy Lee Jones
opposite the role played by Mr. Duvall as Captain Augustus
McRae in a filmed adaptation of Larry McMurtry's epic novel
Lonesome Dove.
It's the story about how a pair of aging Rangers rustle a
herd of longhorns in Mexico, steal them fair and square,
ford the Rio Grande, and their subsequent high adventures as
they drive them to Montana to establish a new ranch on the
Milk River.
In fact, a Texas Department of Public Safety lawyer who vets
applications for concealed carry handgun licenses read a
part of Mr. Shaver's application for one in which he
recounted that his only previous crime was "stealing
watermallons" when he was 14 years old, back in 1954, an
offense for which he was "kept in the jail all night until
my parents come to get me and turn me a'loose."
Mr. Shaver died laughing as the lady read his words aloud to
the Court.
But it is the nature of outlawry itself that comes to the
forefront with every turn of the wheel in this small drama
of personal honor.
It is an ancient concept that is enacted anew each day,
though it was discontinued hundreds of years ago. The truth
is, as every thinking person knows, they can't build the
jail cells fast enough to suit the People of the State of
Texas with all their Peace and Dignity, the kind you could
fit on the head of a pin.
At one time and seemingly forever and ever, the King's Bench
would either summon a prisoner from the jail or in absentia
declare him "out law," - that is, placed beyond the
protection of the law. Once branded with this - sometimes
literally, on the face - a man was never again afforded the
common courtesy of a fair hearing. He was forever and
always regarded as someone the King's Men, or even a private
citizen, could maim or kill at will, with no more than a by
your leave from civil authorities.
Who among us does not know that Mr. Shaver spearheaded a
movement of singer-songwriters who rebelled against the
establishment figures of the country music industry in order
to make their own records, stage their own concerts and
promote their own careers without interference from
professional producers, promoters or other assorted cum shaw
men and hootchie kootchie cats in that rather shady business
where writers are often robbed of their - well, royalties?
The results are written on the winds. Tunes like "Georgia
On A Fast Train," "Pancho and Lefty" - and, why, hell's
bells - "This Land Is Your Land" and "Gallispole" are daily
played and blasted bent blue and proud over the Texas skies
for the listening pleasure of a public that will never know
the trials of men like Billy Joe Shaver, Townes Van Zandt,
Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, or
"Jacky Jack" Jerry Jeff Walker with his tale of the pitiful
Mr. Bojangles, who danced for those at minstrel shows and
county fairs - throughout the south.
And so it made one feel sad - very sad - to finally hear
Wanda Shaver questioned so harshly after hours and hours of
droning testimony from gunshot residue experts who can't
really say anything much, one way or the other, a trauma
surgeon who can only speculate and is not qualified to offer
an opinion on this or that or the other thing no one will
ever really remember or care about - and then hear the lady
prosecutor belabor a grandmother like Mrs. Shaver, as to
whether she and her husband could have left, or could have
retreated, or could have turned around and let somebody
paint a yellow stripe down their backs after they were
bullied by a man who was stirring his drinks and the drinks
of others with the blade of a deadly weapon.
After all, this was someone who was actually there, who
actually saw why the conflict developed between her husband
and a man who was a cousin to a former husband of hers, Don
Phillips, who committed suicide. The plain fact is that Mr.
Billy Coker sat at a table in a friendly neighborhood beer
joint where country music bands play their tunes and people
play Texas Hold-Em while they drink their brewskis and he
flicked the blade open and closed on a razor sharp lock back
blade while he made snarling remarks to a lady whose husband
shot himself.
He blithely told Mr. Shaver to "Shut the fuck up" after he
stirred his whiskey and Mr. Shaver's beer with the nasty
damned thing and wiped the blade on Mr. Shaver's sleeve when
he sought to reprove him for his attitude.
After Billy Joe Shaver invited him to come outside, he stood
in shock, blood dripping from the wound the .22 pistol had
made where Mr. Shaver shot him in the mouth, and, according
to Mrs. Shaver, "He looked at me and he had that kind of
blank look on his face and he said, 'I'm sorry.'"
Mr. Shaver had told him, according to witnesses, that no one
tells him to shut up, that he needed to say he was sorry.
He did.
He still carries the bullet next to his carotid artery where
it is lodged too close to the blood vessel that supplies the
brain with oxygen for surgeons to remove it safely.
He says that it makes his face numb due to damage to the
maxillary nerve after it shattered a tooth, chipped another,
made minor damage to his jaw and plowed through the strap
muscles of his neck to its final resting place.
So mote it be.
According to the veteran defense attorney, Mr. DeGuerin, no
one disputes that it all took place and that Billy Joe
Shaver pulled the trigger that set the bullet in motion.
It's the surrounding facts that really matter, he says.
The bullet came from a tiny pistol held in the mangled hand
of a man who lost its full use when it got caught in the
whirling circle saw blade of a mill where he once worked.
Now, according to his attorney, the State of Texas must
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Shaver was not in
reasonable fear for his life, that he had not any reasonable
notion that he would suffer any harm or further illegal
abuse from the younger man with his menacing knife.
After all, as anyone who has ever done some Texas beer
jointing, it's the pistol that preserves a man's money, his
honor and his grip on life as he sails the Texas blacktop
string banding and playing music under neon lights.
Make the date; play the gig; get paid. Now, fella, get back
to the house with your greenbacks - any which way you can.
Testimony resumes today at the McLennan County Courthouse.
Captain Augustus McRae left the premises yesterday in quiet
dignity, saying he will not return - at least in the guise
of character actor Robert Duvall.
Mrs. Wanda Shaver said in shock and sadness that when she
heard the "pop" the little gun made, she at first thought it
was a firecracker.
It was similar to the sound the gun made when her former
husband, Mr. Coker's cousin, shot himself in her presence
many years previously.
"When my husband shot himself, I heard a sound and I feared
for Billy Joe."
You could have heard a pin drop when she said so about 5:30
p.m., at the end of long and painful day.
Said prosecutor Beth Toben, "If all it was was a
firecracker, there would be no reason to go outside."
Truer words were never spoken.
Know and believe that, oh, my brothers and sisters. Believe
it.
Considereth: In The Auld Lang Syne of Our Bonnie Robert
Burns, "...A man is a man for a'that...And a man is a man for
a'that..."
- The Legendary
jim@downdirtyword.com
"I don't much like words; I very much prefer pictures to words,
any day."
- an outlaw singer-songwriter working a crossword puzzle
Pipes skirled and whistles keened in the ears attached to
the mind's eye on the light and variable winds of April as
prosecutors questioned witnesses who saw what happened when
outlaw legend Billy Joe Shaver shot a man in the face for
his abuse of his wife and himself as they partied in an I-35
road house way back on April Fool's Day Eve, March 31, 2007.
As Prosecutor Beth Toben asked Wanda Shaver argumentative
and repetitive questions, belaboring the point of what did
and didn't happen and when it did, Judge Matt Johnson
repeatedly sustained objections made by Mr. Shaver's defense
counsel, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, as sharp a cookie as ever
cut the edge.
In fact, it was Ms. Toben who showed the truly ugly face of
state authority when she sought to have one of Mr. Shaver's
most trusted friends ousted from the courtroom where he sat
in quiet observation.
Willie Nelson took time out to support Mr. Shaver in his
hour of need and the prosecutor made a motion to have him
removed from the courtroom - as a potential witness for the
state.
Later, when Mr. Nelson stepped outside to go to the
restroom, she had him served with a subpoena, something that
would have precluded his attendance in open court, except
for his testimony, and then only if called.
Happily, the judge waived the exclusionary rule and allowed
him to stay. After all, big star or not, he is still a
human being who is allowed to be concerned about his
friends.
He is expected to return and serve as a character witness,
to tell the jurors he knows Mr. Shaver as a peaceful man.
That's when another beloved celebrity dear to Texas hearts
showed himself. Veteran character actor, producer and
director Robert Duvall entered the rotunda of the courthouse
and told news reporters and television cameramen that he was
not in town to give media interviews, only to stand by for
his friend Billy Joe Shaver and tell the world that he is
not a bad man.
While he was seated in the court, octogenarian Gloria
Tambling, owner of Papa Joe's Texas Saloon where Mr. Shaver
shot Billy Coker in the face, said as her friend pushed her
wheelchair out of the courtroom, "There's Joe McCall!"
In the room where you could have cut the tension with a
lock-blade gravity knife all morning, laughter exploded at
the remark.
She had mistaken Mr. Duvall for the fabled Captain Woodrow
Call of the Texas Rangers, a role played by Tommy Lee Jones
opposite the role played by Mr. Duvall as Captain Augustus
McRae in a filmed adaptation of Larry McMurtry's epic novel
Lonesome Dove.
It's the story about how a pair of aging Rangers rustle a
herd of longhorns in Mexico, steal them fair and square,
ford the Rio Grande, and their subsequent high adventures as
they drive them to Montana to establish a new ranch on the
Milk River.
In fact, a Texas Department of Public Safety lawyer who vets
applications for concealed carry handgun licenses read a
part of Mr. Shaver's application for one in which he
recounted that his only previous crime was "stealing
watermallons" when he was 14 years old, back in 1954, an
offense for which he was "kept in the jail all night until
my parents come to get me and turn me a'loose."
Mr. Shaver died laughing as the lady read his words aloud to
the Court.
But it is the nature of outlawry itself that comes to the
forefront with every turn of the wheel in this small drama
of personal honor.
It is an ancient concept that is enacted anew each day,
though it was discontinued hundreds of years ago. The truth
is, as every thinking person knows, they can't build the
jail cells fast enough to suit the People of the State of
Texas with all their Peace and Dignity, the kind you could
fit on the head of a pin.
At one time and seemingly forever and ever, the King's Bench
would either summon a prisoner from the jail or in absentia
declare him "out law," - that is, placed beyond the
protection of the law. Once branded with this - sometimes
literally, on the face - a man was never again afforded the
common courtesy of a fair hearing. He was forever and
always regarded as someone the King's Men, or even a private
citizen, could maim or kill at will, with no more than a by
your leave from civil authorities.
Who among us does not know that Mr. Shaver spearheaded a
movement of singer-songwriters who rebelled against the
establishment figures of the country music industry in order
to make their own records, stage their own concerts and
promote their own careers without interference from
professional producers, promoters or other assorted cum shaw
men and hootchie kootchie cats in that rather shady business
where writers are often robbed of their - well, royalties?
The results are written on the winds. Tunes like "Georgia
On A Fast Train," "Pancho and Lefty" - and, why, hell's
bells - "This Land Is Your Land" and "Gallispole" are daily
played and blasted bent blue and proud over the Texas skies
for the listening pleasure of a public that will never know
the trials of men like Billy Joe Shaver, Townes Van Zandt,
Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, or
"Jacky Jack" Jerry Jeff Walker with his tale of the pitiful
Mr. Bojangles, who danced for those at minstrel shows and
county fairs - throughout the south.
And so it made one feel sad - very sad - to finally hear
Wanda Shaver questioned so harshly after hours and hours of
droning testimony from gunshot residue experts who can't
really say anything much, one way or the other, a trauma
surgeon who can only speculate and is not qualified to offer
an opinion on this or that or the other thing no one will
ever really remember or care about - and then hear the lady
prosecutor belabor a grandmother like Mrs. Shaver, as to
whether she and her husband could have left, or could have
retreated, or could have turned around and let somebody
paint a yellow stripe down their backs after they were
bullied by a man who was stirring his drinks and the drinks
of others with the blade of a deadly weapon.
After all, this was someone who was actually there, who
actually saw why the conflict developed between her husband
and a man who was a cousin to a former husband of hers, Don
Phillips, who committed suicide. The plain fact is that Mr.
Billy Coker sat at a table in a friendly neighborhood beer
joint where country music bands play their tunes and people
play Texas Hold-Em while they drink their brewskis and he
flicked the blade open and closed on a razor sharp lock back
blade while he made snarling remarks to a lady whose husband
shot himself.
He blithely told Mr. Shaver to "Shut the fuck up" after he
stirred his whiskey and Mr. Shaver's beer with the nasty
damned thing and wiped the blade on Mr. Shaver's sleeve when
he sought to reprove him for his attitude.
After Billy Joe Shaver invited him to come outside, he stood
in shock, blood dripping from the wound the .22 pistol had
made where Mr. Shaver shot him in the mouth, and, according
to Mrs. Shaver, "He looked at me and he had that kind of
blank look on his face and he said, 'I'm sorry.'"
Mr. Shaver had told him, according to witnesses, that no one
tells him to shut up, that he needed to say he was sorry.
He did.
He still carries the bullet next to his carotid artery where
it is lodged too close to the blood vessel that supplies the
brain with oxygen for surgeons to remove it safely.
He says that it makes his face numb due to damage to the
maxillary nerve after it shattered a tooth, chipped another,
made minor damage to his jaw and plowed through the strap
muscles of his neck to its final resting place.
So mote it be.
According to the veteran defense attorney, Mr. DeGuerin, no
one disputes that it all took place and that Billy Joe
Shaver pulled the trigger that set the bullet in motion.
It's the surrounding facts that really matter, he says.
The bullet came from a tiny pistol held in the mangled hand
of a man who lost its full use when it got caught in the
whirling circle saw blade of a mill where he once worked.
Now, according to his attorney, the State of Texas must
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Shaver was not in
reasonable fear for his life, that he had not any reasonable
notion that he would suffer any harm or further illegal
abuse from the younger man with his menacing knife.
After all, as anyone who has ever done some Texas beer
jointing, it's the pistol that preserves a man's money, his
honor and his grip on life as he sails the Texas blacktop
string banding and playing music under neon lights.
Make the date; play the gig; get paid. Now, fella, get back
to the house with your greenbacks - any which way you can.
Testimony resumes today at the McLennan County Courthouse.
Captain Augustus McRae left the premises yesterday in quiet
dignity, saying he will not return - at least in the guise
of character actor Robert Duvall.
Mrs. Wanda Shaver said in shock and sadness that when she
heard the "pop" the little gun made, she at first thought it
was a firecracker.
It was similar to the sound the gun made when her former
husband, Mr. Coker's cousin, shot himself in her presence
many years previously.
"When my husband shot himself, I heard a sound and I feared
for Billy Joe."
You could have heard a pin drop when she said so about 5:30
p.m., at the end of long and painful day.
Said prosecutor Beth Toben, "If all it was was a
firecracker, there would be no reason to go outside."
Truer words were never spoken.
Know and believe that, oh, my brothers and sisters. Believe
it.
Considereth: In The Auld Lang Syne of Our Bonnie Robert
Burns, "...A man is a man for a'that...And a man is a man for
a'that..."
- The Legendary
jim@downdirtyword.com
Commissioners' Court To Bite New Jail Bullet Monday
The outlook: There is no cheap or easy way out of trouble
Monday will be a day of decision for Bosque County.
The Commissioners' Court is expected to make clear their
intentions on how to commence placing the county jail in
compliance with complicated - and expensive - standards that
have been mandated, but not funded, by state officials.
About half of those who bothered to show up voted in a straw
poll to have county commissioners go ahead with plans to
build a new 96-bed Bosque County jail with certificates of
obligation.
Meeting at the auditorium of the Clifton Elementary School
in a final briefing for taxpayers, 15 out of about 30 people
who asked probing questions and made incisive comments about
the unfunded mandate being forced by a state commission to
upgrade living conditions and safety equipment at the lock-
up said they would prefer that their leadership commence
construction of the new jail as soon as possible, while
interest and the cost of materials is still low.
The project is estimated to cost about $10.5 million for the
larger option of 96 beds, while a 64-bed jail would cost
$9.75 million. The larger facility would include a "shell"
for the increased population, at a cost of about $400,000.
The smaller jail would cost taxpayers an additional $.0615
per $100 of assessed valuation while the 96-bed option would
be done at a cost of $.0662.
"It would cost about a half a penny more per $100 assessed
valuation to build the larger jail," said Emergency Services
Manager Dewey Ratliff, the official who has been ramrodding
a citizen's committee's work with Southwest Architects
Jeffrey Heffelfinger to plan the new jail.
The numbers were put together by financing experts at
Specialized Public Finance of Lubbock.
The proposal is to have the public financing concern market
low-interest certificates of obligation on the authority of
the county commission and begin construction very soon - by
early fall - while interest rates are as low as possible.
Even so, County Judge Cole Word pointed out, 5 percent of
registered voters, or about 600 people, could sign a
petition once they Court authorizes such a scheme, and force
the issue to be either approved or disapproved in a general
obligation bond election on Nov. 2.
It all depends on what the Court decides next Monday, April
12.
Only 5 persons straw-polled voted for the general obligation
bond issue at the Thursday night briefing.
It is a small but very vocal and highly dissatisfied
faction, led by a former County Commissioner, who said they
would prefer to put the project to a voters' test.
"It's like buying a used car. They tell you it's for sale
at this price - now. You can't come back later and buy it
for that price," he said. "You have to make up your mind
now. I say, let's wait and decide later - when we know
more."
The rub of the green is this. If the Texas Commission on
Jail Standards can see a display of due diligence to remedy
the fact that the county jail is not in compliance with
standards, they will hold off on closing down the facility.
This is something that would force authorities to have
inmates housed in neighboring counties whose lockups are in
compliance - at an estimated cost of nearly $750,000 per
year. It cost taxpayers about $9,000 during the month of
March to house about half the county's prisoners at other
area lockups because of overcrowding issues at the old jail,
said Sheriff Anthony Malott.
This is a debt that will never be paid off, that of housing
prisoners in another county's jail, and will never go away,
according to a presentation made by the citizens' committee
and county officials.
"It's whether or not we want to spend our money - my money -
to build someone else's jail, or whether we want to spend it
to build our own jail," Dr. Tom Bratcher told the small
throng. He is the Bosque County Republican Chairman-Elect
and a mathematician, the head of a Baylor University
doctoral program that qualifies Ph.D. candidates to be
conferred a degree in statistical analysis. He agreed six
months ago to serve on a 10-citizen steering committee that
helped to plan the new jail.
"The key word is transparency," said Judge Word. He
explained that the county's growing pains are experienced at
the inadequate jail, a crumbling building erected in 1978,
prior to the new commission's standards, schools, hospitals,
law enforcement offices and judicial facilities such as
courtrooms and offices.
"How we pay for them, I don't know," he concluded in a
frustrated tone.
If the Court so authorizes on Monday, Commissioners will go
ahead with the purchase of a seven-acre property in the
Meridian Industrial Park on Highway 144, a project of the
Meridian Econonomic Development Corporation.
Voters would have 30 days from that date to assemble the
petition that would force an election in November.
Monday will be a day of decision for Bosque County.
The Commissioners' Court is expected to make clear their
intentions on how to commence placing the county jail in
compliance with complicated - and expensive - standards that
have been mandated, but not funded, by state officials.
About half of those who bothered to show up voted in a straw
poll to have county commissioners go ahead with plans to
build a new 96-bed Bosque County jail with certificates of
obligation.
Meeting at the auditorium of the Clifton Elementary School
in a final briefing for taxpayers, 15 out of about 30 people
who asked probing questions and made incisive comments about
the unfunded mandate being forced by a state commission to
upgrade living conditions and safety equipment at the lock-
up said they would prefer that their leadership commence
construction of the new jail as soon as possible, while
interest and the cost of materials is still low.
The project is estimated to cost about $10.5 million for the
larger option of 96 beds, while a 64-bed jail would cost
$9.75 million. The larger facility would include a "shell"
for the increased population, at a cost of about $400,000.
The smaller jail would cost taxpayers an additional $.0615
per $100 of assessed valuation while the 96-bed option would
be done at a cost of $.0662.
"It would cost about a half a penny more per $100 assessed
valuation to build the larger jail," said Emergency Services
Manager Dewey Ratliff, the official who has been ramrodding
a citizen's committee's work with Southwest Architects
Jeffrey Heffelfinger to plan the new jail.
The numbers were put together by financing experts at
Specialized Public Finance of Lubbock.
The proposal is to have the public financing concern market
low-interest certificates of obligation on the authority of
the county commission and begin construction very soon - by
early fall - while interest rates are as low as possible.
Even so, County Judge Cole Word pointed out, 5 percent of
registered voters, or about 600 people, could sign a
petition once they Court authorizes such a scheme, and force
the issue to be either approved or disapproved in a general
obligation bond election on Nov. 2.
It all depends on what the Court decides next Monday, April
12.
Only 5 persons straw-polled voted for the general obligation
bond issue at the Thursday night briefing.
It is a small but very vocal and highly dissatisfied
faction, led by a former County Commissioner, who said they
would prefer to put the project to a voters' test.
"It's like buying a used car. They tell you it's for sale
at this price - now. You can't come back later and buy it
for that price," he said. "You have to make up your mind
now. I say, let's wait and decide later - when we know
more."
The rub of the green is this. If the Texas Commission on
Jail Standards can see a display of due diligence to remedy
the fact that the county jail is not in compliance with
standards, they will hold off on closing down the facility.
This is something that would force authorities to have
inmates housed in neighboring counties whose lockups are in
compliance - at an estimated cost of nearly $750,000 per
year. It cost taxpayers about $9,000 during the month of
March to house about half the county's prisoners at other
area lockups because of overcrowding issues at the old jail,
said Sheriff Anthony Malott.
This is a debt that will never be paid off, that of housing
prisoners in another county's jail, and will never go away,
according to a presentation made by the citizens' committee
and county officials.
"It's whether or not we want to spend our money - my money -
to build someone else's jail, or whether we want to spend it
to build our own jail," Dr. Tom Bratcher told the small
throng. He is the Bosque County Republican Chairman-Elect
and a mathematician, the head of a Baylor University
doctoral program that qualifies Ph.D. candidates to be
conferred a degree in statistical analysis. He agreed six
months ago to serve on a 10-citizen steering committee that
helped to plan the new jail.
"The key word is transparency," said Judge Word. He
explained that the county's growing pains are experienced at
the inadequate jail, a crumbling building erected in 1978,
prior to the new commission's standards, schools, hospitals,
law enforcement offices and judicial facilities such as
courtrooms and offices.
"How we pay for them, I don't know," he concluded in a
frustrated tone.
If the Court so authorizes on Monday, Commissioners will go
ahead with the purchase of a seven-acre property in the
Meridian Industrial Park on Highway 144, a project of the
Meridian Econonomic Development Corporation.
Voters would have 30 days from that date to assemble the
petition that would force an election in November.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Knife v. Gun: Who won? Jury's Still OUT! We'll See.
Houston attorney says that "Nothing Happens In A Vacuum"
"There is nothing will take the fight out of a man like
shooting him in the face." - a remark from an old cow-
boy, made on the streets of Waco, "Six Shooter Junction"
When Billy Coker brought his lock-blade Kershaw gravity
knife to the gun fight out behind a Lorena beer joint, he at
first thought it was a joke.
"I didn't even know I was shot at first," he recalled in
direct testimony.
After he repeatedly stirred his Weller's and water with the
blade of the fancy cutlery, then stirred Billy Joe Shaver's beer
with it, he wiped its blade on the sleeve of Mr. Shaver's
garment.
He told jurors in the 54th District Court Wednesday that the
"Old Five and Dimer" who wrote "Fast Train To Georgia" and
"Old Chunk of Coal" appeared to be "kind of annoyed" with
him.
Mr. Shaver, a Corsicana native who is credited with touching
off a Texas outlaw music movement that brought such
luminaries as Willis Alan Ramsey, David Allen Coe, Jerry
Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphy, Townes Van Zandt and
B.W. Stevenson to the forefront of a national craze that
eventually featured such old timers as Willie and Waylon,
Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, invited him
to go outside where numerous witnesses said in his trial for
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, he asked Mr. Coker
where wanted to be shot.
"As soon as I turned around, he said, 'Where do you want
it?'
"I said where do I want what?" recalled Mr. Coker, a middle-
aged supervisor for Oncor Delivery Systems, formerly TXU.
That's when the seasoned singer-songwriter shot him in the
mouth with a small single-action .22 revolver.
"At first, I thought it was some kind of joke."
Most witnesses said Mr. Shaver told him "Nobody tells me to
shut up. You're going to tell me you're sorry."
Nonplussed, Mr. Coker testified, "All I did was try to get
back in the back door cause I didn't know if he was going to
shoot me again."
Crime scene photos depict a series of small puddles of blood
that terminated at a table inside Papa Joe's where women who
work at the establishment stanched the blood spurting from
his cheek. A photo shows a large pool of coagulated blood
at the table where he waited for paramedics to pick him up
and take him to an area hospital where he spent three days
flat on his back.
The bullet entered his face just above his mustache on the
left side of his face, shattered a tooth, knocked a cap off
another, plowed through tissue and wound up lodged in the
muscles of his neck too near his carotid artery for surgeons
to risk its removal.
"He carries it around like a badge of honor," Mr. Shaver's
defense lawyer, Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin said in his
opening statement while he explained to the 8 man, 4 woman
jury that "Nothing happens in a vacuum."
As testimony unfolded from prosecutorial witnesses, the
story of how the altercation took place becomes very clear.
The older Mr. Shaver, who is now 71 and was 68 on March 31,
2007, when the shooting took place, was trying to defend the
honor of his wife Wanda. She was once married to a man who
was related to Mr. Coker. He committed suicide long before
she and Mr. Shaver were married and there were words between
her and Mr. Coker about the matter. The story is that many
people in the family somehow blame her because of the man's
depressive condition.
When she and Mr. Coker discovered they knew each other, they
became engrossed in conversation about the matter and when
Mr. Shaver tried to intervene, some say, he was rebuffed by
a remark from Mr. Coker, who allegedly said, "Shut the f___
up. We're trying to talk, here." It's something Mr. Coker
denies.
He does not deny that he stirred the drinks with the pocket
knife.
In fact, he had been asked repeatedly not to do so, but he
had persisted in doing it, though patrons and the bar's
owner objected. He did it because, he said, "They don't have
any swizzle sticks or spoons to use."
The knife is designed to come open with the slightest
pressure on the lock-back mechanism, which is spring-loaded,
by only the slightest push on a tab on the blade.
It springs open, its serrated edge honed to an intensely
sharp edge, with frightening speed and a sinister click.
Mr. DeGuerin repeatedly flicked it open with his thumb,
closing it and opening it to emphasize its sinister nature
as he elicited testimony from Mr. Coker.
At one point he asked him why he always carries a knife
clipped outside his right hand jeans pocket, "right next to
my phone."
Mr. Coker said he uses it to cut the strings on round bales
he feeds cattle on his family's 91.5 acre farm outside
Lorena.
"So you use it for cutting the strings on round bales and
stirring drinks?" asked the veteran trial attorney, once an
associate of famed and flamboyant advocate Percy Foreman.
That's when Mark Parker, lead prosecutor on the case,
objected to Judge Matt Johnson with a derisive tone, saying
it was irrelevant and a prejudicial distraction to jurors.
The judge took Mr. DeGuerin and all other attorneys into his
chambers for an in camera conference. When he emerged, he
ordered Mr. DeGuerin to put the knife away and seek his
permission to use it only for purposes of demonstration.
"May I use the knife?" Mr. DeGuerin asked immediately.
"For what purpose?" Judge Johnson replied in an icy tone.
"For demonstrative purposes."
"You may not. You have already done that numerous times."
It is all part of a consistent style of advocacy he uses, one
of challenging prosecutors, the judge, the witnesses and every-
one else to remain focused through barrages of objections that
interrupt the flow of questions and answers from witnesses.
It's all perfectly legal under the Texas rules of criminal
evidence and the code of criminal procedure.
He forces the other trial participants to adhere to his overall
program of creating a reasonable doubt that his client did any-
thing other than respond in a common sense way to a very tense
situation, one that made him think that the only reasonable ac-
tion was to use deadly force to defend his life from unlawful a-
buse.
Needless to say, after a long and successful career of advocacy
of very violent offenders, his style is very, very effective.
The man simply questions every material fact, opinion and percep-
tion as these elements are placed on the trial record.
As simple as that may be, it soon leads to very complicated re-
sults.
Mr. DeGuerin made the most out of the fact that Mr. Coker
cannot remember giving the police a statement and picked
the wrong man out of a photo lineup while he was still in
the hospital. Mr. Coker thinks he only gave a statement
after he was released, on the fourth day after the fight.
And yet, there is his dated signature on the photo lineup
form, as plain as day.
"The fact of the business is that you'd had so much to drink
you couldn't ID who shot you. Isn't that right?" the attorney
asked him. Mr. Coker denied that. He also denied that he had
been treated for acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms with a
high-powered blood pressure medicine and other treatments, ac-
cording to hospital records.
Mr. DeGuerin repeatedly asked the same question, asked in
various forms, "Was there a need for you to be treated for
alcohol withdrawal?" Prosecutors objected that the question had
been previously asked and answered. Nevertheless, all this took
place in the presence and the hearing of the jurors.
Judge Johnson sustained their objections.
Testimony that followed saw numerous witnesses all agreeing
that they heard Mr. Shaver ask Mr. Coker where he wished to
be shot. Most had slightly varying memories as to other
details.
One man, Mike Strickland, a welder by trade, who was outside
on the back porch of the Lorena night spot when the shooting
took place, said the pair came out the door and Mr. Shaver
passed Mr. Coker up, circling around him and then
confronted him face to face.
He said he was in fear for his life and the lives of his
children because Mr. Shaver said, "Nobody saw nothing;
nobody sees nothing; nobody says nothing."
He became rather hysterical at times, making jurors and the
gallery respond with laughter at his assertions that on the
night of the attack, he suspected the po-lice might arrest him
for public intoxication, take him to the station and "sweat"
him for his statement.
He assured Mr. DeGuerin on his cross examination that he quit
drinking during the investigation and, as soon as the police
left the scene, he got back right back at it again.
Other witnesses did not see it that way, nor did they hear
Mr. Shaver utter the alleged veiled threat about what they
may have seen or heard.
In fact, another man who was there heard nothing like that.
Both of them said they were afraid and sought the safety of
another location right away, as did Mr. Shaver.
He got his wife in the car and they drove away immediately.
When Mr. Strickland testified that Mr. Shaver had the gun, a
tiny thing that has five cylinders and no trigger guard, in
his right hand, Mr. DeGuerin was standing behind Mr. Shaver's
chair and said, "Which right hand? Do you mean this right
hand?"
He raised Mr. Shaver's right hand above his head and showed the
jurors that aside from his thumb, he has only one finger, his
pinky, and it's deformed and curved, the other three being
severed near the metacarpal knuckles. It all happened in a
sawmill accident many years ago, long before he hitched a ride
to Nashville on a cantaloupe truck and became a professional
song writer and traveling troubador.
The next witness, Leslie Moss, showed the jurors how Mr. Shaver
held the revolver, a product of North American Arms of Provo,
Utah.
A highly articulate and dignified youngman, Mr. Moss is a
physical therapist by trade and a foundingmember and lead
guitarist of "Neon Texas," the band that was playing at Papa
Joe's that Saturday night back in 2007.
He showed jurors how Mr. Shaver held the little pistol between
the remains of his index, middle finger and thumb and pulled the
trigger with the stump of his ring finger and paralyzed pinky
finger. There is no trigger guard, he noted for jurors in his
remarks.
The weapon is designed to be cocked by pulling back the ham-
mer for each discharge, something that for safety requires the
pistolero to carry the weapon with an empty chamber under the
hammer, leaving only four rounds available, in case of a sud-
den bump. It's the only safety device available on this archaic
form of weapon. The revolver is so tiny it may be palmed and
an assailant wouldn't even know his opponent has it until it's
too late and he's been shot.
One may be obtained at Praco Gun and Pawn on 2201 W. Waco Drive
at about $190 the copy. The firm also carries Kershaw lock blade
knives.
The sales staff was happy to allow The Legendary to examine both
and cheerfully demonstrated the advantages of each.
On Thursday, the prosecution will rest and Mr. DeGuerin will
begin to elicit testimony from witnesses who are friendly to
the prosecution. His professional goal is to raise a reasonable
doubt in the minds of jurors that the state has not proven that
Mr. Shaver was not in fear for his life and acting under a
reasonable belief that the only thing that would save him was
the use of deadly force.
I been to Georgia on a fast train.
Honey, I wasn't born no yesterday
I got a good Christian raisin' and an eighth grade education;
ain't no need in y'all a'treatin' me this way
- Billy Joe Shaver,
"Georgia On A Fast Train"
"There is nothing will take the fight out of a man like
shooting him in the face." - a remark from an old cow-
boy, made on the streets of Waco, "Six Shooter Junction"
When Billy Coker brought his lock-blade Kershaw gravity
knife to the gun fight out behind a Lorena beer joint, he at
first thought it was a joke.
"I didn't even know I was shot at first," he recalled in
direct testimony.
After he repeatedly stirred his Weller's and water with the
blade of the fancy cutlery, then stirred Billy Joe Shaver's beer
with it, he wiped its blade on the sleeve of Mr. Shaver's
garment.
He told jurors in the 54th District Court Wednesday that the
"Old Five and Dimer" who wrote "Fast Train To Georgia" and
"Old Chunk of Coal" appeared to be "kind of annoyed" with
him.
Mr. Shaver, a Corsicana native who is credited with touching
off a Texas outlaw music movement that brought such
luminaries as Willis Alan Ramsey, David Allen Coe, Jerry
Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphy, Townes Van Zandt and
B.W. Stevenson to the forefront of a national craze that
eventually featured such old timers as Willie and Waylon,
Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, invited him
to go outside where numerous witnesses said in his trial for
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, he asked Mr. Coker
where wanted to be shot.
"As soon as I turned around, he said, 'Where do you want
it?'
"I said where do I want what?" recalled Mr. Coker, a middle-
aged supervisor for Oncor Delivery Systems, formerly TXU.
That's when the seasoned singer-songwriter shot him in the
mouth with a small single-action .22 revolver.
"At first, I thought it was some kind of joke."
Most witnesses said Mr. Shaver told him "Nobody tells me to
shut up. You're going to tell me you're sorry."
Nonplussed, Mr. Coker testified, "All I did was try to get
back in the back door cause I didn't know if he was going to
shoot me again."
Crime scene photos depict a series of small puddles of blood
that terminated at a table inside Papa Joe's where women who
work at the establishment stanched the blood spurting from
his cheek. A photo shows a large pool of coagulated blood
at the table where he waited for paramedics to pick him up
and take him to an area hospital where he spent three days
flat on his back.
The bullet entered his face just above his mustache on the
left side of his face, shattered a tooth, knocked a cap off
another, plowed through tissue and wound up lodged in the
muscles of his neck too near his carotid artery for surgeons
to risk its removal.
"He carries it around like a badge of honor," Mr. Shaver's
defense lawyer, Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin said in his
opening statement while he explained to the 8 man, 4 woman
jury that "Nothing happens in a vacuum."
As testimony unfolded from prosecutorial witnesses, the
story of how the altercation took place becomes very clear.
The older Mr. Shaver, who is now 71 and was 68 on March 31,
2007, when the shooting took place, was trying to defend the
honor of his wife Wanda. She was once married to a man who
was related to Mr. Coker. He committed suicide long before
she and Mr. Shaver were married and there were words between
her and Mr. Coker about the matter. The story is that many
people in the family somehow blame her because of the man's
depressive condition.
When she and Mr. Coker discovered they knew each other, they
became engrossed in conversation about the matter and when
Mr. Shaver tried to intervene, some say, he was rebuffed by
a remark from Mr. Coker, who allegedly said, "Shut the f___
up. We're trying to talk, here." It's something Mr. Coker
denies.
He does not deny that he stirred the drinks with the pocket
knife.
In fact, he had been asked repeatedly not to do so, but he
had persisted in doing it, though patrons and the bar's
owner objected. He did it because, he said, "They don't have
any swizzle sticks or spoons to use."
The knife is designed to come open with the slightest
pressure on the lock-back mechanism, which is spring-loaded,
by only the slightest push on a tab on the blade.
It springs open, its serrated edge honed to an intensely
sharp edge, with frightening speed and a sinister click.
Mr. DeGuerin repeatedly flicked it open with his thumb,
closing it and opening it to emphasize its sinister nature
as he elicited testimony from Mr. Coker.
At one point he asked him why he always carries a knife
clipped outside his right hand jeans pocket, "right next to
my phone."
Mr. Coker said he uses it to cut the strings on round bales
he feeds cattle on his family's 91.5 acre farm outside
Lorena.
"So you use it for cutting the strings on round bales and
stirring drinks?" asked the veteran trial attorney, once an
associate of famed and flamboyant advocate Percy Foreman.
That's when Mark Parker, lead prosecutor on the case,
objected to Judge Matt Johnson with a derisive tone, saying
it was irrelevant and a prejudicial distraction to jurors.
The judge took Mr. DeGuerin and all other attorneys into his
chambers for an in camera conference. When he emerged, he
ordered Mr. DeGuerin to put the knife away and seek his
permission to use it only for purposes of demonstration.
"May I use the knife?" Mr. DeGuerin asked immediately.
"For what purpose?" Judge Johnson replied in an icy tone.
"For demonstrative purposes."
"You may not. You have already done that numerous times."
It is all part of a consistent style of advocacy he uses, one
of challenging prosecutors, the judge, the witnesses and every-
one else to remain focused through barrages of objections that
interrupt the flow of questions and answers from witnesses.
It's all perfectly legal under the Texas rules of criminal
evidence and the code of criminal procedure.
He forces the other trial participants to adhere to his overall
program of creating a reasonable doubt that his client did any-
thing other than respond in a common sense way to a very tense
situation, one that made him think that the only reasonable ac-
tion was to use deadly force to defend his life from unlawful a-
buse.
Needless to say, after a long and successful career of advocacy
of very violent offenders, his style is very, very effective.
The man simply questions every material fact, opinion and percep-
tion as these elements are placed on the trial record.
As simple as that may be, it soon leads to very complicated re-
sults.
Mr. DeGuerin made the most out of the fact that Mr. Coker
cannot remember giving the police a statement and picked
the wrong man out of a photo lineup while he was still in
the hospital. Mr. Coker thinks he only gave a statement
after he was released, on the fourth day after the fight.
And yet, there is his dated signature on the photo lineup
form, as plain as day.
"The fact of the business is that you'd had so much to drink
you couldn't ID who shot you. Isn't that right?" the attorney
asked him. Mr. Coker denied that. He also denied that he had
been treated for acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms with a
high-powered blood pressure medicine and other treatments, ac-
cording to hospital records.
Mr. DeGuerin repeatedly asked the same question, asked in
various forms, "Was there a need for you to be treated for
alcohol withdrawal?" Prosecutors objected that the question had
been previously asked and answered. Nevertheless, all this took
place in the presence and the hearing of the jurors.
Judge Johnson sustained their objections.
Testimony that followed saw numerous witnesses all agreeing
that they heard Mr. Shaver ask Mr. Coker where he wished to
be shot. Most had slightly varying memories as to other
details.
One man, Mike Strickland, a welder by trade, who was outside
on the back porch of the Lorena night spot when the shooting
took place, said the pair came out the door and Mr. Shaver
passed Mr. Coker up, circling around him and then
confronted him face to face.
He said he was in fear for his life and the lives of his
children because Mr. Shaver said, "Nobody saw nothing;
nobody sees nothing; nobody says nothing."
He became rather hysterical at times, making jurors and the
gallery respond with laughter at his assertions that on the
night of the attack, he suspected the po-lice might arrest him
for public intoxication, take him to the station and "sweat"
him for his statement.
He assured Mr. DeGuerin on his cross examination that he quit
drinking during the investigation and, as soon as the police
left the scene, he got back right back at it again.
Other witnesses did not see it that way, nor did they hear
Mr. Shaver utter the alleged veiled threat about what they
may have seen or heard.
In fact, another man who was there heard nothing like that.
Both of them said they were afraid and sought the safety of
another location right away, as did Mr. Shaver.
He got his wife in the car and they drove away immediately.
When Mr. Strickland testified that Mr. Shaver had the gun, a
tiny thing that has five cylinders and no trigger guard, in
his right hand, Mr. DeGuerin was standing behind Mr. Shaver's
chair and said, "Which right hand? Do you mean this right
hand?"
He raised Mr. Shaver's right hand above his head and showed the
jurors that aside from his thumb, he has only one finger, his
pinky, and it's deformed and curved, the other three being
severed near the metacarpal knuckles. It all happened in a
sawmill accident many years ago, long before he hitched a ride
to Nashville on a cantaloupe truck and became a professional
song writer and traveling troubador.
The next witness, Leslie Moss, showed the jurors how Mr. Shaver
held the revolver, a product of North American Arms of Provo,
Utah.
A highly articulate and dignified youngman, Mr. Moss is a
physical therapist by trade and a foundingmember and lead
guitarist of "Neon Texas," the band that was playing at Papa
Joe's that Saturday night back in 2007.
He showed jurors how Mr. Shaver held the little pistol between
the remains of his index, middle finger and thumb and pulled the
trigger with the stump of his ring finger and paralyzed pinky
finger. There is no trigger guard, he noted for jurors in his
remarks.
The weapon is designed to be cocked by pulling back the ham-
mer for each discharge, something that for safety requires the
pistolero to carry the weapon with an empty chamber under the
hammer, leaving only four rounds available, in case of a sud-
den bump. It's the only safety device available on this archaic
form of weapon. The revolver is so tiny it may be palmed and
an assailant wouldn't even know his opponent has it until it's
too late and he's been shot.
One may be obtained at Praco Gun and Pawn on 2201 W. Waco Drive
at about $190 the copy. The firm also carries Kershaw lock blade
knives.
The sales staff was happy to allow The Legendary to examine both
and cheerfully demonstrated the advantages of each.
On Thursday, the prosecution will rest and Mr. DeGuerin will
begin to elicit testimony from witnesses who are friendly to
the prosecution. His professional goal is to raise a reasonable
doubt in the minds of jurors that the state has not proven that
Mr. Shaver was not in fear for his life and acting under a
reasonable belief that the only thing that would save him was
the use of deadly force.
I been to Georgia on a fast train.
Honey, I wasn't born no yesterday
I got a good Christian raisin' and an eighth grade education;
ain't no need in y'all a'treatin' me this way
- Billy Joe Shaver,
"Georgia On A Fast Train"
Republican Honcho Cusses Sibley For Lawsuit
Bill Crocker tells voters about lobbyist's gifts to liberals
The top Republican in the Texas party condemned David Sibley
for seeking injunctive court relief in Austin to keep a
veteran wounded in the 9/11 attacks off the special election
ballot.
State Senate hopeful Col. Brian Birdwell picked up a key
endorsement when Texas' Republican National Committeeman
denounced the former Senator for making large donations, as
many as 200 of them, to liberal Democrats during his years
as an Austin lobbyist.
Bill Crocker, the Austin man who is the top party official
in the state, made a statement declaring that voters "should
be outraged that Mr. Sibley and his lobbyist friends are
seeking to question Brian's residence whie he was out of the
state on military duty and for treatment of service-related
injuries, and prevent voters from having a real choice on
May 8.
Col. Birdwell was on duty at the Pentagon during the 9/11
attack on the building and sustained burns over a large
percentage of his body.
He has been in Virginia serving his country and calls his
Granbury home his principal abode, something that the former
Senator Sibley has objected to.
In his statement, Mr. Crocker also said, "Republicans should
not be surprised to learn that since leaving office, David
Sibley has not only enjoyed a lucrative career as a
lobbyist, he's played the game well - donating more thatn
200 times and over $112,000 - to liberal Democrats like Jim
Dunnam, Pete Gallego, Kirk Watson, Mike Moncrief and many,
many more. As an Austin lobbyist, he even funded the San
Patricio County Democratic Parety in South Texas. With that
kind of record it's no wonder he wants to use the courts to
keep a true conservative Republican like Brian Birdwell off
the ballot."
Col. Birdwell will appear at Clifton's White Horse Station
on Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m. for a "meet and greet"
reception.
The top Republican in the Texas party condemned David Sibley
for seeking injunctive court relief in Austin to keep a
veteran wounded in the 9/11 attacks off the special election
ballot.
State Senate hopeful Col. Brian Birdwell picked up a key
endorsement when Texas' Republican National Committeeman
denounced the former Senator for making large donations, as
many as 200 of them, to liberal Democrats during his years
as an Austin lobbyist.
Bill Crocker, the Austin man who is the top party official
in the state, made a statement declaring that voters "should
be outraged that Mr. Sibley and his lobbyist friends are
seeking to question Brian's residence whie he was out of the
state on military duty and for treatment of service-related
injuries, and prevent voters from having a real choice on
May 8.
Col. Birdwell was on duty at the Pentagon during the 9/11
attack on the building and sustained burns over a large
percentage of his body.
He has been in Virginia serving his country and calls his
Granbury home his principal abode, something that the former
Senator Sibley has objected to.
In his statement, Mr. Crocker also said, "Republicans should
not be surprised to learn that since leaving office, David
Sibley has not only enjoyed a lucrative career as a
lobbyist, he's played the game well - donating more thatn
200 times and over $112,000 - to liberal Democrats like Jim
Dunnam, Pete Gallego, Kirk Watson, Mike Moncrief and many,
many more. As an Austin lobbyist, he even funded the San
Patricio County Democratic Parety in South Texas. With that
kind of record it's no wonder he wants to use the courts to
keep a true conservative Republican like Brian Birdwell off
the ballot."
Col. Birdwell will appear at Clifton's White Horse Station
on Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m. for a "meet and greet"
reception.
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