There was a scheduling conflict, so a certain McLennan County rancher will not show up on Monday in Waco, Texas, for jury duty after all.
"The president has other commitments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
No problem, said Judge Ralph Strother of the state District Court, though US President George W. Bush's name had popped up on a random list of Texans summoned for jury service. Strother said he had now given Bush, who owns a 640 hectare ranch outside Crawford, a choice of six other dates from next month to June next year.
Does Strother expect him to show up?
Why, yes, the judge said, the White House assured him that "the president considers it an important civic responsibility and duty."
And, he said he was told, "the president didn't want to be treated differently than anybody else."
But to actually sit on a jury and hear a murder case, say, or perhaps just a civil suit?
"I'd be a little surprised," the judge admitted.
Would he ever lock up the president for being a no-show?
"It didn't cross my mind," said the judge, a Republican who has won two elections to the bench since first being appointed in 1999 by Bush, who was then governor.
Has a celebrity ever sat on one of his juries?
"Not anybody of that magnitude that I recall," Strother said. "And I think I would recall."
Asked about the jury summons, McClellan said at the daily White House briefing that the document had not actually been received by Bush but that news accounts of his name's coming up had prompted the White House to call the judge to reschedule.
It seems to be the first family's time. Just a month ago, Strother said, one of the president's daughters, Barbara, turned up on the jury list and also needed a postponement. Then, he said, on Thursday morning he was glancing at next week's list of 600 jury panelists and did a double take.
"Can you believe this?" he recalled exclaiming. "Now the president's name is on there."
Karen Matkin, the district clerk in Waco, said 27,600 people were randomly selected for service in the county every year from about 150,000 voters and licensed drivers.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS