{"id":25830,"date":"2011-07-13T10:22:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T14:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=25830"},"modified":"2011-07-13T10:22:22","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T14:22:22","slug":"the-defense-of-roger-clemens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=25830","title":{"rendered":"The Defense of Roger Clemens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s start right here: I loathe Roger Clemens. The man is a rat bastard traitor to Red Sox nation, and for that he should be burned in effigy on Lansdowne Street every night. They should have pinatas of him for beat down at McGreevy’s Third Base Saloon. He should have to spend time in hell in Babe Ruth’s Dutch Oven. But, this prosecution is stupid and a waste of time.<\/p>\n

From an article about the defense<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Roger Clemens said Tuesday they will challenge the underlying legitimacy of congressional hearings into the use of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball that led to six felony charges that the pitching icon lied to Congress.<\/p>\n

Congress delved into the alleged use of steroids and human growth hormone by baseball players without having relevant legislation pending before Congress and without subsequently generating proposed legislation, Attanasio explained. <\/p>\n

Clemens faces federal charges stemming from allegedly lying to Congress during testimony in which he denied using performance enhancing drugs during a distinguished 23-year season career. The prosecution\u2019s star witness, former strength coach Brian McNamee, claimed before Congress that he had injected the pitcher with medications banned by Major League Baseball on multiple occasions with the full knowledge of Clemens. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really? We are prosecuting him for lying to a body that should have zero interest in the topic, and which is peopled by folks so G D stupid that one of them worried that Guam might capsize endangering US Marines? <\/p>\n

The Clemens defense team\u2019s courtroom attack on Congress built upon documents submitted to the court that argued prosecutors must prove to a jury that the congressional hearing was \u201cbeing held within the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry bestowed upon\u201d a House committee. <\/p>\n

The House \u201cdoes not have authority to expose the private affairs of individuals, nor does it have the power to attempt to resolve differences between two individuals conducting a hearing unrelated to existing or potential legislation,\u201d the defense filing contended in a submission designed to shape the trial judge\u2019s jury instructions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can anyone give me a valid interest Congress has in this? And “Commerce Clause” won’t cut it. Should Congress also be involved in finding who really killed Tupac and Big E. Smalls? What about investigating American Idol? <\/p>\n

I had a buddy who once got bounced from a witness list on a hearing by…..Elmo. That’s right, Elmo. He was bounced from a hearing for a rug that some dude has on his hand. If Congress isn’t going to be serious about anything, why in the hell would we care if someone lies before it?<\/p>\n

Defense lawyers contend Clemens\u2019 voluntary testimony to Congress was not \u201cmaterial\u201d to the work of Congress and that lawmakers took no remedial action in response to testimony about drug use in baseball other than referring Clemens to prosecutors for allegedly lying.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Daniel Butler challenged Attanasio\u2019s contention, insisting Congress enjoys broad powers to delve into issues of public concern. Prosecutors hope to bolster their contention with immediate testimony as early as today by retired House Parliamentarian Charles Johnson and former committee chief counsel Phil Barnett. <\/p>\n

Butler emphasized that a congressional hearing back in 2005 prompted both legislation to regulate steroids and creation of Major League Baseball\u2019s commission led by former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, to investigate the scope of drug abuse within the multibillion-dollar professional sport. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All this shit was going down when I was deployed, and leading the show was the execrable Republican Chairman from Virginia Tom Davis. With the possible exception of Ron Paul, I have never despised a GOP as much as him. And now this rat bastard is teaching classes at GMU, which annoys me to no end.<\/p>\n

Anyway, as much as I hate Clemens, and am certain dude lied his ass off, I hope this defense works and sends a message that The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. And one of those is overseeing professional sports. Congress should stick to what it is good at, doing jack shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s start right here: I loathe Roger Clemens. The man is a rat bastard traitor to … The Defense of Roger Clemens<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}