Rusty Hardin: Joe Straus' (and Bill Powers') "Bloody, Poisoned, Dwarf"

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Isaiah 5:20

Marxists follow patterns.  Their power built on lies, they must demonize the truth.  Enemies of the state must be eliminated.  What was true for Soviet Russia in 1937 applies equally to the University of Texas in 2014.  In the 'purifying' thunderstorm of Soviet 'justice' that is the Wallace Hall impeachment, Rusty Hardin is Nikolai Yezhov.

Rusty Hardin's 'report' is an astonishing, though strangely entertaining, act of chutzpah.  Using innuendo and petulance, the $157,000 (and counting) 'report' concludes that Wallace Hall is a big meanie: "Hall acted like a roving inspector general in search of a problem rather than a solution." (2)  Specifically, the 'report' charges Hall with making people work late, 'violating' irrelevant federal privacy laws, being mean to Bill Powers, and demanding basic financial accountability as grounds for impeachment.  We haven't heard a powerful, politically-connected, Texan whine this much since we were last in a room with Jim Keffer.  But at least Rusty Hardin got his 30 pieces of silver.

Hardin echoes Jim Pitts' original resolution that Hall made "numerous unreasonably burdensome, wasteful, and intrusive requests for information" (44)  Waaah!!!  The 'report' shrieks for 30 pages about Hall's supposed misdeeds.  Examples include: making people work late (49), personally visiting campus (55), meeting with the Office of the Attorney General (59), sayin' mean stuff (61), that "have negatively impacted employee morale" (79).  Sounds to us like due diligence.

Hardin's greatest slight of hand, however, concerns Hall's alleged abuse of 'confidential' information while investigating improper relationships between the UT administration and state legislators Jim Pitts and Judith Zaffirini.  At issue is an interpretation of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974.  In the gray area of FERPA interpretation, Hardin uses a convenient standard set by the U.S. Department that contradicts directly with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2002 Case Owasso Independent School District vs. Falvo.  The Court ruled unanimously that only an institution, not an individual, can violate FERPA, reducing Hardin's argument to legalistic sophistry.  A conservative lawyer with whom we spoke described this section as "sloppy" to the point "I would be embarrassed to put my name on it."

Of course, Wallace Hall's greatest 'transgression' is that he was mean to poor Bill Powers.  Following revelations about corruption at the UT Law School, "Hall's focus tightened on former law school dean Powers and what Hall perceived as Powers' failings." (117)   This January, following Powers' questionable testimony to the impeachment committee, "Hall sent [former U.T. Chancellor Francisco] Cigarroa a lengthy and detailed critique of President Powers's [sic] sworn testimony." (87)  He even had the nerve to follow up two weeks later!!! (88)  Clearly, Wallace Hall is worse than parents who eat their children's Halloween candy:



UT's most serious malfeasance, however, concerns the $215 million software donation scandal.  In 2007 and 2010, UT's geology department received valuable in-kind donations from a third party, which they counted towards their capital campaign using a favorable interpretation of a legal grey area.  In 2011, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) explicitly closed the loophole.  Caught with their pants down, UT panicked (93).  Hall refused to acquiesce to the cover-up (98).  Hall was eventually proven correct (95).  Clearly, the solution is to get rid of Wallace Hall.

An old legal cliche states: "[W]hen the law is on your side, argue the law.  When the facts are on your side, argue the facts.  When neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table."  Rusty Hardin's 'report' pounds...something.  It combines the precise legal analysis of Joseph Stalin with the rhetorical subtlety of Khrushchev at the United Nations.  But the University of Texas is the biggest special interest in this state, and enemies of Bill Powers and Joe Straus must be punished.  FORWARD fellow comrades!!!