Bad Deeds for 1-1-2012

Another Galveston County Republican Elected in 2010 Now in Hot Water (It’s Like a Bad Parade) – A League City lawyer elected as a county court judge lost a libel lawsuit against his then-estranged wife’s attorney, but the attorney’s counter lawsuit accuses the judge of “practically everything evil under the sun.”

The saga of Christopher Dupuy began before he was elected the Galveston County Court at Law No. 3 judge during a 2010 Republican sweep at the polls. Dupuy filed a Feb. 16, 2010, libel lawsuit against Danbury attorney Savannah Robinson, who was his estranged wife’s attorney in a divorce proceeding, according to court documents.

Robinson’s counter lawsuit levels vast criticism against Dupuy, accusing him of engaging in a “perverse, iron-fisted rule of domestic terror.”

“Christopher Dupuy’s reputation is such that he is simply incapable of being defamed,” Robinson states in the counterclaim. “Any possible damage which could result to such a poor reputation would be of minuscule quantity incapable of being measured.”

Robinson leveled many other accusations against Dupuy in her 22-page counterclaim filed April 10, 2010, in County Court No. 1, including one that accused him of having a long-standing sexual addiction.

It claims Dupuy’s wife, Adrienne Dupuy, fears for the safety of her children during Dupuy’s visitation. She made calls to police, state child protection services and crisis counseling. She also sought psychological counseling for her children, the counterclaim states.

“Christopher Dupuy’s reputation is such that he is simply incapable of being defamed,” Robinson states in the counterclaim. “Any possible damage which could result to such a poor reputation would be of minuscule quantity incapable of being measured.”

Robinson leveled many other accusations against Dupuy in her 22-page counterclaim filed April 10, 2010, in County Court No. 1, including one that accused him of having a long-standing sexual addiction.

It claims Dupuy’s wife, Adrienne Dupuy, fears for the safety of her children during Dupuy’s visitation. She made calls to police, state child protection services and crisis counseling. She also sought psychological counseling for her children, the counterclaim states.

As a defense to Dupuy’s libel lawsuit, the countersuit claims Dupuy is “universally despised within the legal community for his lack of professionalism, his lack of common civility and his unjustified legal posturings. …”

It accuses Dupuy of frequently taking positions contrary to law, says he is seldom prepared and hostile to being corrected.

Dupuy refuses reasonable attempts at communication or courtesy, delays matters, abuses the discovery process and has little grasp of his duties as an officer of the court, the counter claim states.

Dupuy has been frequently reported to the State Bar of Texas Grievance Committee and to the Texas Attorney General’s Office by his peers and clients, the lawsuit claims.

When Dupuy filed as a candidate for judge, he was under a six-month probated suspension from the state bar, which found he committed professional misconduct. Dupuy’s websites contained misleading statements, according to documents obtained from the bar’s Grievance Committee. (But Republicans, the uninformed and those who didn’t vote elected him anyway. -JLV)

Mitt Romney Promises to Kill More Jobs – Mitt Romney promised that, as president, he would cut federal workers’ pay and slash the number of federal government jobs saying, “Federal employees, we’ve got too many of them, and they’re paid too much.”

Romney’s argument that federal workers are paid more than private sector workers distorts the facts. At the top end of the pay scale, federal workers are often paid less than their private sector counterparts, so much so that the government has “found it increasingly more difficult to attract and retain high-skill workers.” If Romney wanted to bring federal pay in line with the private sector as he suggested, he’d have to provide many government workers a raise.

Romney’s claims that there are “too many” government jobs, meanwhile, ignores the state of the American jobs crisis. While the private sector continues to grow, federal, state, and local governments have shed more than 500,000 jobs in the last two years, negating the positive effects of private sector growth and dragging down the economic recovery. If public sector employment was at its 2009 level, the unemployment rate would have been down to 8.4 percent last August., and even lower now. Also, the sharply reduced incomes of former teachers and and other government workers lead them to spend less in their local communities, thus further slowing economic growth.

Under-Regulated Mining and Austerity Measures Causing Great Wall of China to Collapse – China‘s rapid push to develop the country’s resources is now threatening its most iconic landmark. According to recent reports, both legal and illegal mining near the Great Wall are causing parts of the ancient, 4,000-mile-long structure to crumble away.

“The Great Wall of China may have survived the Huns and Mongol hordes, but widespread neglect, underfunding, and mining means that it is now falling down,” The Telegraph reported earlier this month, citing photographs that show “huge holes…punched through the wall in some areas” and entire sections up to 100 miles long in ruins.

“We have no idea how many enterprises are engaged in mining along the Great Wall,” the British newspaper quoted Guo Jianyong, an engineer from the provincial architecture protection agency, as telling the People’s Daily.

The stability of the centuries-old wall is threatened by prospecting for copper, iron, molybdenum, and nickel, with some mining operations coming within 100 meters of the famous structure, Reuters reported. It said the country’s Land Resources Bureau is not required to consult with the Department of Cultural Heritage before issuing mining permits.

Villagers in Hebei Province told the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency that “about 700 meters of the wall, which was built during the reign of Emperor Wanli during the Ming Dynasty (1573-1620), had already collapsed, and more walls and even towers are likely to collapse if the mining continues unchecked.”

According to both The Telegraph and Reuters, maintenance of the wall has focused on the most-visited segments near Beijing, with other parts neglected and left to fall into disrepair. Xinhua quoted an engineer as saying that resources are so limited, many segments of the wall are only inspected once a year.

China Wants to Build More Dirty Coal Plants: Occupy China Stops Construction of Dirty Coal Plant – Tens of thousands of residents in China’s southern Guandong Province gathered in the streets last week, occupying a highway to demonstrate against the development of a new coal plant near Shantou city. The residents say existing coal plants in the area are fouling local air and water, and are making people sick.

Each year, protests spring up to counter the construction of dirty coal plants. But this appears to be the biggest yet. Officials now say they will abandon plans to build a new coal plant in the area.

Remember to Pay Your Lockheed-Martin Tax This Year – Last year, just one defense contractor, Lockheed-Martin, brought in $45.8 billion in revenue, mostly from taxpayer-funded contracts.1 That huge amount of money means that the average American family pays $260 of their income taxes to Lockheed Martin.2

1 Lockheed Martin’s 2010 Annual Report (.pdf).

2 Hartung, William. Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, p. 29. New York: Nation Books, 2011.

A Thought About the New Year
Our government has traditionally been an essential actor in the nation’s economy, a guarantor of fair rules of competition, a countervailing force against excessive private power, a check on the inequalities that capitalism can produce, and an instrument that can open opportunity for those born without great advantages.

I would like to see dramatic change to assure a fair and just economy right now, this year, just like most of you. However, Republican roadblocks won’t let that happen. The way to make that kind of change happen is from the grass roots up, starting with electing good people in 2012.

The Republican Party is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine our government to create a radical new society. Republicans have two real goals: redistributing your wealth upward, and establishing a permanent Republican Regime of one-party rule, and they are willing to work to make that happen. Are we ready to work to make sure it doesn’t happen? The clock is ticking; time is shorter than you think. Early voting for the general election is a little over nine months away. We need to ask ourselves everyday, “What did I do today to elect the right people? What will I do tomorrow?”

Regards,

Jim