Well, well, well. Cade Cothren was sentenced just about as long as he was with that woman in the bathroom at Party Fowl. And his “daddy,” former state House Speaker Glen Casada, is joining him in getting a pardon from President Trump.
I’ll let our own Nicolle S. Praino sum it up:
The two were found guilty of honest services wire fraud, conspiracy, bribery, theft and money laundering after a trial in May. In September, Cothren was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, one year of probation and a $25,000 fine. Casada was soon after sentenced to three years in federal prison, fined $30,000 and given one year of supervised release.
Former state House speaker, aide received calls from president offering pardons for money laundering, fraud scheme convictions
A third conspirator — former Tennessee Republican Party chair Robin Smith, who testified against these two — is also hoping for a pardon, though I suppose that seems less likely. I feel a tiny bit bad for her, because in the end, she did the right thing, and she’s likely going to be the only one with this still on her record. On the other hand, oh no! Did it turn out that the party that is openly toying around with rescinding women's right to vote doesn’t give a shit if a woman rots while her two male co-conspirators go free? Who could have predicted that?
Hold on. Hey, Memphis! I have an idea! You know how you’re being occupied because of your supposed terrible crime rate? Have you considered asking all your shady friends and drug-dealing cousins and that woman who’s always stealing lipstick to switch to political crimes? No one needs to give up their outlaw ways. The lesson here is just focus your crimes in service of Republicans and it’s fine.
Y’all, we are at the point where we need a scorecard to keep the TN GOP's pardon situation straight.
We have former state Sen. Brian Kelsey firmly in the “Pardoned” column.
Now we have Casada and Cothren in the “Being Pardoned” column.
And we have Robin Smith joining Andy Ogles in the “Probably Hoping to Be Pardoned” column.
We probably need a column for “Lord I wish this person was in need of a pardon, but they will never be held remotely accountable for their misdeeds.” But on my scorecard, that’s all taken up by Gov. Bill Lee.
In the old days, I’d be appalled by the hypocrisy of all these right-wingers who have the gall to complain about crime when their politicos are all pardoned criminals. But this is beyond appalling. This is just utter contempt for regular people. And I have to ask — why should it not be met with contempt?
A look at one of the country’s largest for-profit private prison companies — and the politics, money and institutions that have contributed to its power
Regular people’s loved ones get tossed into the hells of our state prisons — hells these evil, soft babies helped create — and Kelsey, Casada and Cothren can’t do short stints in the much safer federal system? What utterly contemptable cowards. You think everybody’s not afraid to go to prison? You think the rest of us don’t have families who need their incarcerated person back home? You think there aren’t a shit-ton of people in prison who are there because they got charged or sentenced too harshly?
How in the hell do we expect 16-year-old kids to sit in prison for most of their lives when grown-ass men can’t do two years?
I’m bummed everybody I know is broke (because we’re working hard on having a two-tiered economy in the same way we have a two-tiered justice system, and as long as everything’s working out for the people on the upper tier, they don’t notice or care that we’re suffering. Because what we need to do is enlist the skills of a guy who makes sculptures of the many-armed Hindu gods and pay him to make a statue of the personification of everyone who would never be in a position to get a presidential pardon, and give that statue a million arms — each ending in a raised middle finger. Then we can set it facing the state Capitol.
That way all the disdain Republicans show for our laws and our ways of life can be instantly reflected right back at them by the statue we’ve tasked to hold and display our contempt for their cowardice.
