On Monday night, Kathleen G. Kane, Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor, was found guilty of nine criminal charges, including perjury and criminal conspiracy. A judge also convicted her of leaking grand jury information and then lying about it in an effort to discredit a political rival.
Kane, 50, was “...caught up in a web of scandal and counter-scandal, threaded with lewd emails, political rivalries and alleged leaks. It has cost other state officials, including two State Supreme Court justices, their jobs and Ms. Kane her law license, although she has remained on the job as attorney general,” according to New York Times writer Jess Bidgood.
By all accounts, Kane was one of the most promising Democratic potentials in the Keystone State. High-profile, powerful, political players fall hard, and unfortunately for Kane, her downfall has been a nasty one. According to an article yesterday in LAW*NEWZ : ““Kane has reportedly portrayed the prosecution as revenge for uncovering the sharing of pornography among prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys over state servers.”
“According to Fox News, that revelation led to the dismissal of two state Supreme Court justices and others, but a judge said that Kane’s defense can’t use that information during her trial,” LAW*NEWZ adds.
“Since Monday’s conviction, the calls for Kane to resign have only intensified,” the LAW*NEWS article continues.
“’As I have made clear, I do not believe Kathleen Kane should be Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I believed this when she was charged, and today, after conviction, there should be no question that she should resign immediately,’” Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, also a Democrat, said in a statement, obtained by CNN, LAW*NEWZ reports.
As in the fall of any high-profile and powerful political figure, there will be a legal
battle — it’s not over yet. “We will continue this litigation and we will continue this fight because we believe that our client has been wrongfully accused of misconduct,” Kane’s defense attorney Gerald Shargel told media outside the court, according to CNN.
Is Kane a rogue hatchet-lady who made some mistakes in voraciously attacking other high-profile, powerful leaders of her state? Has Kane been severely reprimanded of crimes because she went after some leaders who really deserved to fall under an Attorney General’s legal fire? Is Kane actually a maverick Democrat who had the audacity to attack members of her own party?
Or is she an inept, rash, and malicious prosecutor who deserves to suffer dire consequences for breaking the law in an haughty manner?
Well, this story hasn’t ended yet and only time will tell.
I sort of like mavericks in politics. I think a lot of other Americans do, too. Not only do they keep the news interesting, they are also valiant - noble even. They shake things up and sometimes even create the waves for change. And at times this change is positive and very much required.
But even so, how can an attorney general continue to act as a state’s top prosecutor when she has lost her law license? What type of dysfunctional legal diphtheria has the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania been stricken with here?
And the crimes she has been convicted of — perjury, leaking grand jury information and then lying about it in an effort to discredit a political rival, criminal conspiracy, and so on, are just not things any attorney general is allowed to do! My God man, it’s criminal! Tssk. Tssk. Tssk. Serves her right! Give her the royal treatment — lock her up and throw away the keys! — The boys at the Old Crow’s Diner somewhere in Lower Boonsville, Pa. have been saying all week over coffee and bacon and eggs.
Kane’s conviction on so many counts couldn’t come at a worse time for the Keystone State’s Democratic Party. The Clinton campaign is closing in on November’s Presidential Election and such a horrid black eye on the face of the Democratic Party in a key battleground state is not what the ballot box needs right now, at least for Pennsylvania’s - and even the national - Democrat leadership.
Although Kane’s consequences might not hurt Clinton’s campaign all that much, any bump of the Voting Day Apple Cart this late in the battle for the keys of the White House is not good. The last thing the Clinton camp should have to face right now is such a horrid controversy coming out of Pennsylvania.
Hillary needs to win the Keystone State. Much of this state is blue collar and these folks watch the nightly news. They are well informed and take a very active interest in local and state political news. And as crazy and temperamentally dysfunctional as the polling numbers have swung in this Presidential race, a retired steelworker who was a Democrat last week might be a Republican now. Hillary Clinton doesn’t need this sort of thing — and although Kane’s disgrace should not be seen as a reflection on Clinton in any way, some voters don’t see things this way.
Pennsylvania also borders on coal country. West Virginia is its immediate neighbor to the south. Bernie Sanders beat Clinton by 51% to 36% in the Mountain State’s May 10 Democratic Primary and Donald Trump triumphed in the Republican Primary here by a walloping 77% margin. Republican rivals Ted Cruz got 9% of the vote while Ohio Gov. John Kasich got 7%.
People in neighboring states tend to think along the same lines. Voters who live in western Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia border, tend to have the same mindset, politically in many ways, as their Mountaineer neighbors directly to the south. Those who come out of steelworker and coal mining stock are as blue collar as blue collar gets, after all. And even their children and grandchildren have a love and fond remembrance of what grandpa and grandma said around the table. Yes, they talk about politics a lot in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I know this because I’ve been a newspaper reporter and editor who has covered the people of both of these states. I know them well. These people overall, tend to have strict principles, hard opinions, a love and reverence for the work ethic, ditto for the Red, White & Blue and Almighty God, and are usually very direct. They believe in honesty and integrity and especially want these values in their political world.
Just to the west of Pennsylvania lies Ohio. Cities not far from the Pennsylvania line, like Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, and Steubenville, are also very blue collar. Sundry types of factories, tire making plants, steel mills and down-line steel processing facilities, aluminum extrusion facilities, some auto plants, and other types manufacturing and fabricating facilities were booming here at one time. And there are still many of these concerns in operation in eastern Ohio. So in many ways, the political mindset of this group of people is part of the overall “think tank” of this wide, deep, populous region that also includes northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Although Clinton’s Pennsylvania Presidential Primary vote showed her winning over Bernie Sanders by a 55.6% to 43.6% margin, Donald Trump’s win in the Pennsylvania Republican Primary showed him winning with a 56.7% overall vote. John Kasich’s home state - Pennsylvania — gave their Republican son a 19.4% nod. Kasich was bested, however, by Ted Cruz here — Cruz got 21.6% of the vote. This scattered vote in the Republican Primary in Pennsylvania could be seen as a good omen for Clinton, however, and even Republican also-rans Ben Carson got 0.9% of the vote, with Marco Rubio grabbing 0.7% and Jeb Bush seeing a 0.6% overall tally.
Things could change, though. After all, aren’t they changing like the wind almost every week in this capricious and oftentimes volatile political rumpus between Trump and Clinton? The last thing Hillary Clinton needs right now in Pennsylvania is for a sizable margin of those who voted for Sanders to jump over to the Trump side. Ditto for those who voted for other candidates in the Republican race who might have swayed to the Clinton side before the Kathleen G. Kane scandal, which evolved into a nightmare multiple criminal convictions for the top prosecutor.
Staying the course is essential in golf, swimming, a university Logic class, and in particular, in such a fitful and unpredictable political horse race as this one has been — and as mean-spirited, underhanded and opportunistic as Trump has shown himself to be, Clinton doesn’t need any more trouble, least of all in a state as important to her election as Pennsylvania.
Clinton has a way of coming through in the toughest of circumstances, however, and email scandal aside, she knows exactly how to respond to Trump’s constant barrage of vitriol. Even one of his latest outrageous statements turned into a debacle - in which this lame-brained hothead commented on something that could be construed as a threat of fatal violence against his political rival during a recent speech in front of a crowd in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday, Aug. 9, really served to injure his campaign, if you want to call this crazy thing he’s built around himself “a campaign”.
"If she gets to pick her judges, there’s nothing you can do folks. Although for the Second Amendment people, maybe there is I don't know." — I hope the men in black suits have taken notice of this horrible comment. I’m not kidding around when I say this man, this Donald Trump character, although a filthy rich billionaire, is also a crazy lunatic that never thinks before he blabbers.
Trump also has the proclivity and seeming capability of being a very dangerous and diabolical man. A tyrant? Yes, I think so….
Trump can’t stop himself, can he? He has to make these horrible comments and they come so often that it’s a wonder he has five supporters in America. After alienating essentially every race except for Caucasians. Oh well, let me think for a second — maybe a large percentage of Caucasian women should seem not only offended, but violated by the the Great Orange One’s caustic misogynistic comments toward women in general - but how can any level-headed and sensitive Hispanic, Arab-American, or African-American honestly like this blowhard? And when other minority groups see their brothers and sisters of darker skin persuasions than pale come under attack, these folks get skittish and at times, even hostile.
I don’t see a great number of positive posts concerning Trump on the Native American social media groups that I belong to — oh, there’s been a plethora of posts on these groups — with some even bordering on blatant slander — against this truly terrible man — but not much of anything positive or supportive concerning `The Donald’. Those in the Native social media community seem to abhor Trump. And I don’t need to take any polls on this fact. I’ve probably seen more than a thousand pejorative and caustically ridiculing posts on these social media groups to know that I am right here. Truthfully, I’ve only seen a few supportive posts holding up this knucklehead.
Hillary Clinton is a seasoned federal leader who has learned how to deal with this egregious and bottom-feeding political predator. I have no doubt that over the long run, she’ll win handily in November. Even in Keystone land. For a man who had no business even being in the Presidential race, it’s absolutely amazing what a following Trump has gathered. And like many Americans, I’m concerned about the overall welfare and stability of the USA in seeing this man’s rise to prominence and popularity. Although it was ugly and weird watching him say “You’re fired” over and over again, week after week, on that Apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice show, I don’t want him to get rid of the global warming problem by initiating a nuclear winter.
Back to the Keystone State now. The New York Times writer captures and ending to this trial in a somber and even a somewhat eerie way:
“Ms. Kane stared straight ahead as the word ‘guilty,’ uttered decisively by a juror in a flowered dress, echoed nine times around the courtroom. The lawyers immediately went into a private conference with the judge, leaving Ms. Kane, who campaigned on a promise to uncover political interference in Pennsylvania, alone at the defense table,” according to Jess Bidgood’s New York Times that appeared Monday.
“And when Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy returned to the courtroom, she turned directly to Ms. Kane with a stern warning, her words slicing through the silence,” Bidgood goes on to write.
“`There is to be absolutely no retaliation of any kind against any witness in this case, either by your own devices, from your own mouth or your hand, or directing anybody to do anything,’ the judge said. She threatened Ms. Kane, who is currently free on bail, with immediate incarceration if she failed to comply,” the New York Times writer adds.
“’Is that clear, Ms. Kane?’ the judge asked,” Bidgood writes.
“’Yes it is, your honor,’ Ms. Kane said,” The New York Times writer pens.
It’s sad. I can’t help but feeling sorry for Ms. Kane. It’s sort of like the one sensitive soul who watched Saint Joan of Arc burned at the stake and then the bearded goliath broke down and cried.
Well, so much for some really bad political gunky coming out of Pennsylvania this week. We’ll see what happens next week, though. Donald Trump may make some kind of crazy statement that if he is elected, he will send the U.S. Marine Corps into Pennsylvania looking for potential terrorists and stray horses and camels. Hang up high on those there oak trees boys! Don’t show ‘em no mercy!
Or he might say something even more outlandish and horrid later this week than he said about the Second Amendment and poor Hillary. And if not, probably at least sometime next week he’ll fall off a stage somewhere and cause a national fiasco.
Maybe by November, “The Donald” will only have five supporters coast to coast. I don’t think Hillary really has much to worry about in the macro view of her political sphere.