EL PASO -- A man who jumped 60 feet to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl on Thursday left a note with a message for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
A note to "Obama" was found in the man's car, which was parked on the top ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl.
Officials offered no further explanation nor interpreted the note's meaning.
About 7:45 a.m., police responded to a report that the 52-year-old El Paso man had jumped off the uppermost ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl. His body was found on I-10 west just before the Copia Street exit. His name was not released.
Police spokesman Darrel Petry said Crimes Against Persons investigators were investigating the death as a suicide.
Two notes on large pieces of paper were found on the dashboard and another part of the car, police said.
The investigation into the death caused traffic to back up near Hawkins Boulevard for at least an hour as the man's body lay in the far right lane of the interstate. His white tennis shoes, which had fallen off during or after the fall, lay just a few feet from his body.
Police were also seen on Ramp F, the top ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl, next to the white four-door sedan, which was parked unattended. The ramp connects I-10 west to the Bridge of the Americas and Paisano Drive.
Police confirmed that the man left behind a note that read, "Obama take care of my family."
Petry said that the incident was a public safety matter because of its location, and that it required the services of three police units, specialized crime-scene units and detectives. At least three Texas Department of Transportation workers were there, as were members of the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office.
"Three units were tied up for three hours (and) four lanes of I-10 were turned into two lanes during rush hour," Petry said. "When something like that happens in that location, we have to ensure the public's safety so they can continue to navigate the roads safely."
The previous time a person apparently committed suicide by leaping from the Spaghetti Bowl, according to El Paso Times archives, was in February 2007.
Texas Transportation Department spokeswoman Blanca Del Valle said there were no plans to install fencing along any of the Spaghetti Bowl ramps because the ramps weren't meant to accommodate pedestrians.
"There's funding issues involved, and it may mean replacing what we have now," Del Valle said. "There are tubes in the barriers along the ramps, and studies would have to be done to determine if the tubes could hold the fencing."
Del Valle said department engineers would also have to consider whether the numbers of suicides and apparent suicides merited more barriers.
Adriana M. Chávez may be reached at achavez@elpasotimes.com;546-6117.
Learn more
# For more information on suicide prevention, visit www.spanusa.org.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_10861445
Friday, October 31, 2008
Ringleader in Cortlandt cross burning gets jail time
WHITE PLAINS – The man who, along with a friend, lit a four foot cross on an African-American family’s front lawn, was sentenced Thursday in Westchester County Court to six months in the county jail, five years probation, 1,000 hours of community service, judgment order of restitution for damages and permanent orders of protection.
Christopher Hudak, 31, of Cortlandt, had pled guilty to criminal mischief in the third degree as a hate crime, aggravated harassment in the first degree, criminal mischief in the third degree and intimidating a witness in the third degree, all felonies, and arson in the fifth degree, a misdemeanor.
Hudak’s accomplice, Ryan Martin, 20, of Montrose, was sentenced on Tuesday to weekends in the county jail, five years probation, 300 hours of community service, judgment order of restitution for damages and permanent orders of protection.
Both men had been charged with the November 21, 2007 cross burning in the Town of Cortlandt. The two set the fire in retaliation for an incident that had occurred earlier in the day at school. The incident, an altercation, was between the sister of one of the defendants and a minor resident of the home.
According to Drudge....
PURGE: SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE
Fri Oct 31 2008 08:39:55 ET
**Exclusive**
The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!
The NY POST, WASHINGTON TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.
MORE
Some told the DRUDGE REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.
After a week of quiet but desperate behind-the-scenes negotiations, the reporters of the three papers heard last night that they were definitely off for the final swing. They are already planning how to cover the final days by flying commercial or driving from event to event.
Developing...
**** Drudge ought to quit that.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Bay State Banner on Wilkerson
End of an era
Dianne Wilkerson has been the most productive holder of the Second Suffolk District’s seat in the state Senate since its establishment in 1972. She brought intellectual acuity and the skills of an accomplished lawyer to the office.
Her many achievements include extending the provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act to insurance companies, requiring police departments to provide racial data in an effort to combat so-called “driving while black” harassment, providing funds for witness protection to counter the “stop snitching” code, and authoring laws designed to prevent insurance redlining and predatory lending practices.
The Bay State Banner has always endorsed Wilkerson’s achievements, even though her administrative irregularities were troubling. She failed to file tax returns for several years and she violated state campaign finance laws on multiple occasions. The Banner viewed these charges as unfortunate blemishes on an otherwise productive career.
But now, Wilkerson has been arrested by the FBI and Boston police, and stands charged with the felony of extorting payment from constituents for official services. The photographic evidence in support of these charges is compelling; investigators also claim to have audio and video recordings of Wilkerson’s misdeeds. It is evident that Wilkerson has breached the public trust. Consequently, the Banner can no longer support Wilkerson for public office.
- Bay State Banner
Dianne Wilkerson has been the most productive holder of the Second Suffolk District’s seat in the state Senate since its establishment in 1972. She brought intellectual acuity and the skills of an accomplished lawyer to the office.
Her many achievements include extending the provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act to insurance companies, requiring police departments to provide racial data in an effort to combat so-called “driving while black” harassment, providing funds for witness protection to counter the “stop snitching” code, and authoring laws designed to prevent insurance redlining and predatory lending practices.
The Bay State Banner has always endorsed Wilkerson’s achievements, even though her administrative irregularities were troubling. She failed to file tax returns for several years and she violated state campaign finance laws on multiple occasions. The Banner viewed these charges as unfortunate blemishes on an otherwise productive career.
But now, Wilkerson has been arrested by the FBI and Boston police, and stands charged with the felony of extorting payment from constituents for official services. The photographic evidence in support of these charges is compelling; investigators also claim to have audio and video recordings of Wilkerson’s misdeeds. It is evident that Wilkerson has breached the public trust. Consequently, the Banner can no longer support Wilkerson for public office.
- Bay State Banner
Tuskegee
Tuskegee Mayor-Elect Omar Neal, second from right, poses with two former Tuskegee Mayors and the current Tuskegee City Manager during a transitional meeting on October 28 at the Tuskegee Municipal Complex. From left are: Tuskegee City Manager Al Davis; outgoing Mayor Johnny Ford; Omar Neal; and 1996-2000 Mayor Ron Williams For more on Ford's Tuskegee's new mayor, see the related story in this week's online edition of The Tuskegee News.
The full text of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson’s statement on her re-election bid and the charges against her:
By Herald staff
Thursday, October 30, 2008
“I would like voters of the 2nd Suffolk Senate District to know that I am staying the course of my campaign for re-election on November 4. Not only does this represent the biggest challenge in my personal and political life, but it will test to the limit the notion of innocent until proven guilty.
“While there is great curiosity about the particulars of my case, I am not at liberty to discuss them for obvious reasons. For those of you who must be thinking ‘There has to be more to this story,’ of course there is. But it is not a story that I am able or willing to lay out in the press.
“From the purely political perspective, it seems a lot of people - including myself - have seriously underestimated U.S. Attorney Sullivan’s political calculus. In one fell swoop, and even before an indictment has been returned, he sought to imperil my re-election campaign, and has set much of the state’s Democratic leadership back on its heels. He brought this issue forward at this time knowing full well I would never have an opportunity to have my day in court prior to November 4.
“I am grateful for and humbled by the support I continue to receive, and ask that voters continue to stick by me on November 4.”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
“I would like voters of the 2nd Suffolk Senate District to know that I am staying the course of my campaign for re-election on November 4. Not only does this represent the biggest challenge in my personal and political life, but it will test to the limit the notion of innocent until proven guilty.
“While there is great curiosity about the particulars of my case, I am not at liberty to discuss them for obvious reasons. For those of you who must be thinking ‘There has to be more to this story,’ of course there is. But it is not a story that I am able or willing to lay out in the press.
“From the purely political perspective, it seems a lot of people - including myself - have seriously underestimated U.S. Attorney Sullivan’s political calculus. In one fell swoop, and even before an indictment has been returned, he sought to imperil my re-election campaign, and has set much of the state’s Democratic leadership back on its heels. He brought this issue forward at this time knowing full well I would never have an opportunity to have my day in court prior to November 4.
“I am grateful for and humbled by the support I continue to receive, and ask that voters continue to stick by me on November 4.”
Senators meet to decide Wilkerson’s fate
By Hillary Chabot and Laurel J. Sweet | Thursday, October 30, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics
Photo
Photo by John Wilcox
Senators caucused this morning and examined whether to strip Sen. Dianne Wilkerson of her chairmanship and possibly oust her from the Senate.
Meanwhile, Gov. Deval Patrick said today Wilkerson should resign, “if the allegations are true.”
Patrick said he’s “deeply troubled” by the corruption charges levied against the eight-term state senator. “I feel personally betrayed,” he added.
Wilkerson was arrested earlier this week and charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes in exchange for passing legislation.
Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) could move to expel Wilkerson from the Senate at today’s caucus, according to a Senate source.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Steven Panagiotakos (D-Lowell), who also sits on the Ethics Committee, said he wasn’t sure if members will be able to force Wilkerson from the Senate.
“I think you can request her to do it, but I think you have to wait until the charges against her are settled in court to remove her from the Senate,” Panagiotakos said.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1128846
no way for a lady to behave
Dianne, darling, that’s no way for a lady to behave
By Lauren Beckham Falcone | Thursday, October 30, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics
Alleged bribes, backroom deals and shady politics. There’s lots to chew on when the topic’s Sen. Dianne Wilkerson. But the real question is this:
Does this woman own a pocketbook - you know, the traditional place to keep loot? What kind of person stuffs wads of cash in her bra at No. 9 Park? Who is she - Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke?
A Maidenform is no substitute for Marc Jacobs, my dear.
Wilkerson must have spent her 1997 house arrest on tax evasion charges watching “Take the Money and Run.”
The state senator allegedly netted $23,500 in bribes during an 18-month FBI investigation, which busted her for taking cash for political favors. Photos from June 18, 2007, show Wilkerson stuffing wads of moola in her Wacoal at the bar at No. 9 Park, an intimate Beacon Hill bistro where a pear martini costs $13 and short ribs will run you $39.
Granted it was a Monday night, not a happening one in the restaurant biz for sure, but still. No. 9 ain’t Centerfolds. And a Victoria’s Secret push-up is a storage unit for one thing. OK, two things.
Worse, she wasn’t even this-is-just-between-us discreet, demurely tucking the cash in her cleavage. Nope - she went burrowing up the sweater, like a chipmunk getting ready for winter.
No skills.
Even if you find yourself without a bag, wouldn’t pockets come to mind? And who has that kind of extra room to store $1,000? The brassiere wranglers at Lady Grace could teach Wilkerson a few things about proper fit.
Let’s hope the senator sashayed down to Neimans and plunked down the take on a nice leather tote. Or splurged on a Louis Vuitton. Even a Liz Claiborne clutch from TJMaxx would have worked for the next transaction, this time at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill. Wilkerson allegedly took $1,000 in cash at each of the next two meetings and said she planned to go to the spa at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
It’s disappointing when our politicians are charged with crimes, and worse when they are crimes against taste. Foxwoods? What about our very own Canyon Ranch? Or even a nice little day of beauty at Bella Sante on Newbury? Not only is the senator allegedly extorting money, she’s not even spending it in her own state. Now that’s criminal.
By Lauren Beckham Falcone | Thursday, October 30, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics
Alleged bribes, backroom deals and shady politics. There’s lots to chew on when the topic’s Sen. Dianne Wilkerson. But the real question is this:
Does this woman own a pocketbook - you know, the traditional place to keep loot? What kind of person stuffs wads of cash in her bra at No. 9 Park? Who is she - Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke?
A Maidenform is no substitute for Marc Jacobs, my dear.
Wilkerson must have spent her 1997 house arrest on tax evasion charges watching “Take the Money and Run.”
The state senator allegedly netted $23,500 in bribes during an 18-month FBI investigation, which busted her for taking cash for political favors. Photos from June 18, 2007, show Wilkerson stuffing wads of moola in her Wacoal at the bar at No. 9 Park, an intimate Beacon Hill bistro where a pear martini costs $13 and short ribs will run you $39.
Granted it was a Monday night, not a happening one in the restaurant biz for sure, but still. No. 9 ain’t Centerfolds. And a Victoria’s Secret push-up is a storage unit for one thing. OK, two things.
Worse, she wasn’t even this-is-just-between-us discreet, demurely tucking the cash in her cleavage. Nope - she went burrowing up the sweater, like a chipmunk getting ready for winter.
No skills.
Even if you find yourself without a bag, wouldn’t pockets come to mind? And who has that kind of extra room to store $1,000? The brassiere wranglers at Lady Grace could teach Wilkerson a few things about proper fit.
Let’s hope the senator sashayed down to Neimans and plunked down the take on a nice leather tote. Or splurged on a Louis Vuitton. Even a Liz Claiborne clutch from TJMaxx would have worked for the next transaction, this time at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill. Wilkerson allegedly took $1,000 in cash at each of the next two meetings and said she planned to go to the spa at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
It’s disappointing when our politicians are charged with crimes, and worse when they are crimes against taste. Foxwoods? What about our very own Canyon Ranch? Or even a nice little day of beauty at Bella Sante on Newbury? Not only is the senator allegedly extorting money, she’s not even spending it in her own state. Now that’s criminal.
Experts say officials could flip Dianne Wilkerson - Probe’s scope may widen
...Kevin McGrath, a white-collar crime defense attorney and former chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, said, “The office would feel obligated to pursue all potential targets.” But he predicts no leniency for Wilkerson - who faces 40 years behind bars if convicted - “unless she was able to provide useful information about people either equally or more prominent than her.”
Asked how he would advise Wilkerson to proceed, high-profile defense attorney Kevin Reddington noted he has a tattoo on his right shoulder that says, “Never represent an informant.”
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” Reddington said. “There must be some sweaty eyebrows out there right now.” Prosecutor John T. McNeil “is a pitbull,” he said. “He’ll be relentless.”
Grace Jones says she 'can't stand' Palin
Jamaican-born disco diva Grace Jones said she was sorry Hillary Clinton had failed to make the cut in the US election and that she "can't stand" folksy vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The 1980s style icon, now 60, told German magazine TV Spielfilm Wednesday that Palin stood for a backward vision of America laden with government restrictions of sexuality and social behaviour.
"I would have loved it if Hillary Clinton had pulled it off," Jones said, in an interview published in German marking the release of her new album.
"I can't stand Sarah Palin. I bet a woman like that has no sense of humour."
The androgynous Jones, who conquered dancefloors and runways from New York to Paris in the 1980s and had star turns in blockbusters alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Roger Moore, said she believed in her own form of sexual liberation.
She said she had fallen afoul of feminists for stunts such as "appearing naked in a cage" but insisted she had the right to determine what was artistic or simply exploitative.
"I believe a woman can present herself as a sex object if she has fun doing it," she said.
The statuesque Jones attributed her own dominant image to the influence of her grandfather, who served in World War I.
"He was strict, even frightening," she said. "Sometimes I think I am possessed by him."
**** I think the publisher just wanted to use that picture, as there was nothing of any use said in the article *****
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Boston Black Folk PLEASE.....
It has become fashionable among a certain ilk to defend and/or excuse the alleged misdeeds of a scandalized Massachusetts State Senator.
This passage came to mind:
"Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise: and he that shuts his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."
That's from Proverbs 17:28. (Sunday School paid off in the long run.)
A heap of people in 'Will-Cash-In's' soon to be former senate district would do better heeding the cited passage and reading the actual Criminal Complaint, than spewing all that embarrassing ignorance.
Boston Black Folk, PLEASE!
Probe rocks City Hall
Pol, panels now under microscope
By Dave Wedge, Edward Mason and Jessica Van Sack | Wednesday, October 29, 2008
FBI agents traipsing through the State House and subpoenas flying around City Hall in the bribery probe involving state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson have cast a spotlight on how business gets done in Boston - particularly when it comes to liquor licenses and development projects.
Whether the case against Wilkerson will end with the allegations she faces - or prompts a wider probe - is anybody’s guess. But the shock waves for Bay State pols are raising political and accountability questions as well as legal ones.
“I think a lot of people are nervous, and the question is what’s she going to do? Is she going to turn on people?” one state official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
Especially under the microscope is the Boston Licensing Board, a board appointed by the state but based in City Hall that controls rare items worth their weight in gold: licenses to sell alcoholic beverages.
According to a federal complaint, Wilkerson was audiotaped telling the owner of a proposed nightclub named Dejavu that she was “burning up” the phones trying to get his liquor license, including talking to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Licensing Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski and Sen. Michael Morrissey, chairman of the Legislature’s Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure.
Wilkerson also sent a letter to Menino and Pokaski on her Senate letterhead four days after she allegedly received a $1,000 cash bribe from the bar owner and told both officials she wanted to “secure a license for Dejavu immediately,” the complaint alleges.
In a section of the complaint against Wilkerson titled “Boston Licensing Board ‘Smoke and Mirrors,’ ” the feds quote an unnamed lawyer, employed by a confidential informant, as saying the licensing board chairman “had committed to Wilkerson that he would take care of the situation, and that he did not want to be on Wilkerson’s ‘bad side.’ ”
Menino, whose name appears in the federal complaint numerous times along with City Councilors Maureen Feeney and Chuck Turner, “does everything he can to make sure he has a good handle on how many liquor licenses are out there,” said mayoral spokeswoman Dot Joyce. “He’s very disappointed obviously in the senator.”
Boston police informed the mayor early yesterday of the investigation and said he was not a target. Joyce confirmed the mayor’s office has received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office for documents related to the probe.
Both Feeney and Turner also received subpoenas yesterday, sources said.
Turner said FBI agents came to his office about 9 a.m. yesterday and grilled him and his staff about his ties to Dejavu owner Ron Wilburn. A 33-page federal complaint alleges Wilkerson took $8,500 in cash to get the club a liquor license and held up legislation giving pay raises to the Boston Licensing Board until it was done.
The affidavit alleges the Roxbury Democrat took a total of $23,500 in cash payments over 18 months, including both the alleged cash for the liquor license scheme and a deal to transfer public land to a private developer in Roxbury.
Federal prosecutors allege that Wilkerson used her clout to block the state from leasing the Harrison Avenue land to an “interested business,” instead pledging to push legislation to sell it to a private developer who was actually an undercover federal agent.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1128492
By Dave Wedge, Edward Mason and Jessica Van Sack | Wednesday, October 29, 2008
FBI agents traipsing through the State House and subpoenas flying around City Hall in the bribery probe involving state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson have cast a spotlight on how business gets done in Boston - particularly when it comes to liquor licenses and development projects.
Whether the case against Wilkerson will end with the allegations she faces - or prompts a wider probe - is anybody’s guess. But the shock waves for Bay State pols are raising political and accountability questions as well as legal ones.
“I think a lot of people are nervous, and the question is what’s she going to do? Is she going to turn on people?” one state official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
Especially under the microscope is the Boston Licensing Board, a board appointed by the state but based in City Hall that controls rare items worth their weight in gold: licenses to sell alcoholic beverages.
According to a federal complaint, Wilkerson was audiotaped telling the owner of a proposed nightclub named Dejavu that she was “burning up” the phones trying to get his liquor license, including talking to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Licensing Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski and Sen. Michael Morrissey, chairman of the Legislature’s Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure.
Wilkerson also sent a letter to Menino and Pokaski on her Senate letterhead four days after she allegedly received a $1,000 cash bribe from the bar owner and told both officials she wanted to “secure a license for Dejavu immediately,” the complaint alleges.
In a section of the complaint against Wilkerson titled “Boston Licensing Board ‘Smoke and Mirrors,’ ” the feds quote an unnamed lawyer, employed by a confidential informant, as saying the licensing board chairman “had committed to Wilkerson that he would take care of the situation, and that he did not want to be on Wilkerson’s ‘bad side.’ ”
Menino, whose name appears in the federal complaint numerous times along with City Councilors Maureen Feeney and Chuck Turner, “does everything he can to make sure he has a good handle on how many liquor licenses are out there,” said mayoral spokeswoman Dot Joyce. “He’s very disappointed obviously in the senator.”
Boston police informed the mayor early yesterday of the investigation and said he was not a target. Joyce confirmed the mayor’s office has received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office for documents related to the probe.
Both Feeney and Turner also received subpoenas yesterday, sources said.
Turner said FBI agents came to his office about 9 a.m. yesterday and grilled him and his staff about his ties to Dejavu owner Ron Wilburn. A 33-page federal complaint alleges Wilkerson took $8,500 in cash to get the club a liquor license and held up legislation giving pay raises to the Boston Licensing Board until it was done.
The affidavit alleges the Roxbury Democrat took a total of $23,500 in cash payments over 18 months, including both the alleged cash for the liquor license scheme and a deal to transfer public land to a private developer in Roxbury.
Federal prosecutors allege that Wilkerson used her clout to block the state from leasing the Harrison Avenue land to an “interested business,” instead pledging to push legislation to sell it to a private developer who was actually an undercover federal agent.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1128492
Jefferson County (Alabama) Former Commissioner Due in Fed Court
Former Jeffco commissioner due in Birmingham court
Associated Press • October 28, 2008
BIRMINGHAM - A former Jefferson County Commission president is due in federal court in Birmingham to answer charges that she lied to federal grand jurors.
Court documents indicate Mary Buckelew will plead guilty to obstruction of justice during an appearance Tuesday. She previously reached a deal with prosecutors to admit her guilt.
Prosecutors say Buckelew lied about receiving $4,000 worth of shoes, a purse and spa treatments during three trips to New York to discuss bond financing. She got those gifts from an investment banker who did business with the county.
Buckelew admitted knowing the gifts were meant to influence decisions on financing work on the county's sewer system. Those deals went sour, and the county is now trying to avoid filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Associated Press • October 28, 2008
BIRMINGHAM - A former Jefferson County Commission president is due in federal court in Birmingham to answer charges that she lied to federal grand jurors.
Court documents indicate Mary Buckelew will plead guilty to obstruction of justice during an appearance Tuesday. She previously reached a deal with prosecutors to admit her guilt.
Prosecutors say Buckelew lied about receiving $4,000 worth of shoes, a purse and spa treatments during three trips to New York to discuss bond financing. She got those gifts from an investment banker who did business with the county.
Buckelew admitted knowing the gifts were meant to influence decisions on financing work on the county's sewer system. Those deals went sour, and the county is now trying to avoid filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Obama's Candidacy Riles Hate Groups - NPR
Daniel Cowart
Election 2008
by Dina Temple-Raston
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET
Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., is shown in a mugshot photo from Oct. 27, 2008. Crockett County Sheriff Office/Getty Images
All Things Considered, October 28, 2008 · The charges Monday against two neo-Nazi skinheads in Tennessee accused of plotting a shooting rampage and an attack on Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama drew attention to law enforcement's simmering concerns over how white supremacists would react to a black candidate.
The plan that Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman, of West Helena, Ark., were hatching was fantastic in its scope, and authorities said Obama was never in any danger.
Federal agents said Cowart and Schlesselman planned to rob a gun store, target students at a largely African-American high school and then make an assassination run at Obama.
The two men did not expect to be successful, but they wanted to die trying, investigators said. Their plan was to drive as fast as they could toward Obama and shoot at him from the windows of their car. They had talked about dressing in white tuxedos and top hats for the occasion. The suspects are being held without bond on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm, conspiring to steal firearms and threatening a candidate for president.
This is the second white supremacist plot against Obama that authorities have revealed. In August, just days before Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver, local police arrested three men with white supremacist ties for possibly threatening Obama's life.
While law enforcement officials say Obama was never in any danger in either the Denver episode or the incident that came to light on Monday, they are also quick to say that they cannot afford to take these cases lightly. They have been expecting new challenges from white supremacist quarters.
"There is a probable hypothesis that in the event that Obama becomes president that you could have a galvanization of these white supremacist groups," said John Karl, the officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department's Criminal Conspiracy unit. "Obviously, law enforcement needs to be prepared, and how do you prepare? You need to become as resourceful and comprehensively understand the groups and individuals involved."
Karl says the First Amendment ties law enforcement's hands. They cannot move in until and unless these groups actually commit a crime.
"If no crime has been committed, no activity has come up on the radar screen, we can't arbitrarily start rounding people up," he said. "There is a little problem with the constitution and things like that."
Supremacist Groups In California
Travel out of metropolitan L.A. — to Southern California cities further inland where supremacists have traditionally congregated — and it is clear that law enforcement is in a state of alert.
Chris Keeling is part of the FBI's hate crimes task force in Santa Clarita. As he sees it, Obama's effect on the hate movement is no longer theoretical. It has already happened.
"There is more on the Internet. There are more flyers — leaf-letting going out. Because now they have a target," he said. "Take Obama out of the situation, you're still going have leaf-letting. But having Obama in there and being a stone's throw from being the president has it increased the Internet activity? Absolutely, absolutely."
These days, Keeling works about six hate crime calls a week. Some of them are serious. A couple of months ago some skinheads beat up a customer at a local restaurant — just because he was black — and others are crimes of opportunity. Obama posters, for example, have become an easy target.
"Now you have Obama placards through people's businesses and homes, so if a guy has a certain view and now he defaces it, it made it a little easier," he says. "Other than that he had to find a wall somewhere and spray paint something on the wall."
The FBI set up a task force in Santa Clarita partly because racist skinhead gangs have long been a fixture in there. For years, the Antelope Valley had been a white enclave — a refuge from Los Angeles. When immigrants began moving in, hate groups saw their membership ranks grow as whites in the neighborhoods banned together. Keeling said Obama's candidacy is adding fear and uncertainty to an already volatile mix.
"This is different. This is new. This has never happened before," Keeling said of Obama's candidacy. "We're not doing anything extra but we're kind of being more cognizant of things."
Obama's Candidacy Fits Into Supremacists' Ideology
Part of the problem is that Obama is playing into the neo-Nazi and white supremacist narrative, said Brian Levin who studies hate and extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
"So what they are saying is everything we warned about — Jews and blacks coming out of the urban areas are going to take over this white nation of ours has occurred," he said.
You only have to look to the Internet to see how white supremacist leaders such as David Duke are using Obama to rally their troops. David Duke has called Obama a "visual aid for hate groups."
He says an Obama presidency would provide indisputable proof that whites have lost control of America.
"This is a cultural and racial battlefront," said Levin. "Barack Obama is a symbol number one of the worst the future has to offer."
While Obama may be an easy focus of discussion for haters, he hasn't unified them. In fact, in many ways, he has managed to do just the opposite. He has divided the movement.
Obama Dividing Supremacists
Tim Zaal is a former white supremacist from Los Angeles who has renounced his racist past. He is in his old neighborhood in West Hollywood. As Zaal sees it, the split Obama has created is almost generational — between old-school Ku Klux Klan types who are viscerally against a black man running for president and a new wave of haters.
"You have the more — kind-of strange to say it — progressive white attitude: the worse it gets, the better," said Zaal. "Get a woman in there. Get a black man in there. Get people angry. And, in my eyes from that point of view, back in those days, great, great."
Zaal says the new generation is particularly focused on what they see as the coming race war. They have been trying to spark one for years. Some think, even hope, that an Obama presidency will do just that.
Zaal says some will actually vote for Obama under the understanding that it will send the country into a tailspin. "The worse it gets, the better," said Zaal. "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise."
That mindset is all over the neo-Nazi Web sites. On one, a man with the pen name "LastOfMyKind" wrote, "Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites."
This is what worries the police and the FBI.
Timeline of problems of Mass Sen. Wilkerson
By The Associated Press | October 28, 2008
State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's history of legal and ethical problems during her 13 years in the Legislature:
-- Oct. 28: Wilkerson is charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes in exchange for favors to undercover agents posing as local business.
-- Oct. 24: The state Bar Counsel accuses Wilkerson of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's manslaughter conviction.
-- Sept. 16: Wilkerson loses the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Diaz. She begins a write-in campaign for the Nov. 4 election.
-- Aug. 1: Wilkerson says she will pay a $10,000 fine and forego about $30,000 in debts she said her political committee owed her to settle allegations of campaign finance problems.
-- 2001: Wilkerson is fined $1,000 by the State Ethics Commission for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as a senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
-- 1999: Wilkerson is suspended from practicing law for one year after a tax evasion conviction.
-- 1998: Wilkerson agrees to pay back all unaccounted expenditures and to pay civil penalties totaling $11,500 to settle allegations of unexplained expenditures and undisclosed political action committee contributions.
-- 1997: Wilkerson is sentenced to house arrest after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's history of legal and ethical problems during her 13 years in the Legislature:
-- Oct. 28: Wilkerson is charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes in exchange for favors to undercover agents posing as local business.
-- Oct. 24: The state Bar Counsel accuses Wilkerson of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's manslaughter conviction.
-- Sept. 16: Wilkerson loses the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Diaz. She begins a write-in campaign for the Nov. 4 election.
-- Aug. 1: Wilkerson says she will pay a $10,000 fine and forego about $30,000 in debts she said her political committee owed her to settle allegations of campaign finance problems.
-- 2001: Wilkerson is fined $1,000 by the State Ethics Commission for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as a senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
-- 1999: Wilkerson is suspended from practicing law for one year after a tax evasion conviction.
-- 1998: Wilkerson agrees to pay back all unaccounted expenditures and to pay civil penalties totaling $11,500 to settle allegations of unexplained expenditures and undisclosed political action committee contributions.
-- 1997: Wilkerson is sentenced to house arrest after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Boston Globe: Charges against Wilkerson elicit shock, calls for resignation
That's her on the left, standing next to Governor Deval Patrick.
Wilkerson Arrested By FBI On Corruption Allegations
NOW!!!!
BOSTON - October 28, 2008 - Massachusetts state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday and charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes from undercover agents she believed were local businessmen.
Wilkerson was charged with attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator. Photographs taken from surveillance video include one showing her allegedly stuffing money under her shirt.
She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
"Public service is a privilege, and voters and taxpayers expect that elected officials will do what's right for their constituents, not what is financially best for themselves," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said. "The citizens of the Commonwealth deserve honest and faithful services from elected officials, uncompromised by secret payments of cash."
Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press for comment.
Wilkerson, 53, lost a close Democratic primary in September to Sonia Chang-Diaz, but was running a sticker campaign against her in the Nov. 4 election to retain the seat she has held since 1993. Among the allegations, she is accused of urging an undercover agent to help her raise $10,000 of the up to $70,000 needed for a primary recount.
Despite a number of legal and ethical charges throughout her term, Wilkerson remained popular in her Boston district and was supported in her primary bid by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. Sullivan said it was "coincidental" the complaint was filed a week before the election.
There was no evidence other lawmakers were involved in the bribery scheme, he said.
Senate President Therese Murray, who had endorsed Wilkerson and campaigned with her, said she was seeking an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and would remove the senator from her post as chairwoman of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
The governor said the allegations were "troubling and sad."
"These are very serious charges and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously," he said.
Senate Republican Leader Richard Tisei called on her to resign.
An FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Boston includes a series of still photographs from video recordings allegedly showing Wilkerson accepting cash, in one case talking the money and stuffing it under her sweater and inside her bra. She allegedly took one payment earlier this month outside her Roxbury office.
In one part of the criminal complaint, an undercover agent asks Wilkerson if a second agent has been "taking care" of her.
"Sure has," Wilkerson is quoted as saying. "And believe me, they're very, very, very much appreciated."
Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging in amounts from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation. Some of the meetings discussing the payments or the actions Wilkerson would take occurred in the Statehouse.
According to the complaint, between June 2007 and March 2008, Wilkerson allegedly took $8,500 in cash payments from an undercover agent and a cooperating witness to help a proposed nightclub in her district, named Dejavu, get a liquor license.
She allegedly pressured the Boston License Board, Menino and the City Council on behalf of the nightclub, and delayed legislation that would have increased the salaries of members of the licensing board.
"I pushed the envelope farther than it's ever been pushed before," Wilkerson allegedly told the agent.
She also said "I've been beating people up" for action, and spoke of "people who's knees I had to crack."
Between June and October, she also allegedly accepted $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping an undercover officer posing as a businessman avoid the bidding process to develop state property in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood.
During one transaction caught on videotape on June 18, 2007, Wilkerson took a payment and stuffed it inside her sweater at the bar at No. 9 Park restaurant on Beacon Hill. The money was allegedly handed to Wilkerson by a cooperating witness who Wilkerson promised to help obtain the liquor license.
During another transaction at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill, a cooperating witness handed Wilkerson $1,000 in cash, telling her she had earned the money and should "knock yourself out." The handoff was made while Wilkerson's granddaughter, who had accompanied her to the lunch, was away from the table, according to the complaint.
Wilkerson told the witness she planned to go to the spa at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut that weekend, the complaint said.
The new charges are the latest in a string of troubles to plague the lawmaker.
On Friday, the state Bar Counsel filed a complaint against Wilkerson accusing her of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's voluntary manslaughter conviction. The penalty could include disbarment.
She was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Over the years, she also has paid thousands in fines to settle allegations of failing to account for donations and personal reimbursements for her campaign and political action committee and for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama - NYT
By JIM RUTENBERG
The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that helped set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”
That statement, contained in a press release, spun a complex tale about the ancestry of Mr. Obama, who is Christian.
The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama’s background.
Just last Friday, a woman told Senator John McCain at a town-hall-style meeting, “I have read about him,” and “he’s an Arab.” Mr. McCain corrected her.
Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.
But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.
An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.
He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”
Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.
Mr. Martin, in a series of interviews, did not dispute his influence in Obama rumors.
“Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” Mr. Martin said, adding, however, that some take his writings “and exaggerate them to suit their own fantasies.”
As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”
When questions were raised last week about Mr. Martin’s appearance and claims on “Hannity’s America” on Fox News, the program’s producer said Mr. Martin was clearly expressing his opinion and not necessarily fact.
It was not Mr. Martin's first turn on national television. The CBS News program "48 Hours" in 1993 devoted an hourlong program, "See You in Court; Civil War, Anthony Martin Clogs Legal System with Frivolous Lawsuits," to what it called his prolific filings. (Mr. Martin has also been known as Anthony Martin-Trigona.) He has filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval.
He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.
In the 1990s, Mr. Martin was jailed in a case in Florida involving a physical altercation.
His newfound prominence, and the persistence of his line of political attack — updated regularly on his Web site and through press releases — amazes those from his past.
“Well, that’s just a bookend for me,” said Tom Slade, a former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, whom Mr. Martin sued for refusing to support him. Mr. Slade said Mr. Martin was driven like “a run-over dog, but he’s fearless.”
Given Mr. Obama’s unusual background, which was the focus of his first book, it was perhaps bound to become fodder for some opposed to his candidacy.
Mr. Obama was raised mostly by his white mother, an atheist, and his grandparents, who were Protestant, in Hawaii. He hardly knew his father, a Kenyan from a Muslim family who variously considered himself atheist or agnostic, Mr. Obama wrote. For a few childhood years, Mr. Obama lived in Indonesia with a stepfather he described as loosely following a liberal Islam.
Theories about Mr. Obama’s background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin’s first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.
Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama’s heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including “Obama Nation,” the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.
“What he’s generating gets picked up in other places,” said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who has investigated the e-mail campaign’s circulation and origins, “and it’s an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time.”
Ms. Allen said Mr. Martin’s original work found amplification in 2006, when a man named Ted Sampley wrote an article painting Mr. Obama as a secret practitioner of Islam. Quoting liberally from Mr. Martin, the article circulated on the Internet, and its contents eventually found their way into various e-mail messages, particularly an added claim that Mr. Obama had attended “Jakarta’s Muslim Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging jihad on the rest of the world.”
Mr. Obama for two years attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, where he was taught about the Bible, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” and for two years went to an Indonesian public school open to all religions, where he was taught about the Koran.
Mr. Sampley, coincidentally, is a Vietnam veteran and longtime opponent of Mr. McCain and Senator John Kerry, both of whom he accused of ignoring his claims that American prisoners were left behind in Vietnam. He previously portrayed Mr. McCain as a “Manchurian candidate.” Speaking of Mr. Martin’s influence on his Obama writings, Mr. Sampley said, “I keyed off of his work.”
Mr. Martin’s depictions of Mr. Obama as a secret Muslim have found resonance among some Jewish voters who have received e-mail messages containing various versions of his initial theory, often by new authors and with new twists.
In his original press release, Mr. Martin wrote that he was personally “a strong supporter of the Muslim community.” But, he wrote of Mr. Obama, “it may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel.” He added, “His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles.”
Yet in various court papers, Mr. Martin had impugned Jews.
A motion he filed in a 1983 bankruptcy case called the judge “a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.”
In another motion, filed in 1983, Mr. Martin wrote, “I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did.”
In an interview, Mr. Martin denied some statements against Jews attributed to him in court papers, blaming malicious judges for inserting them.
But in his “48 Hours” interview in 1993, he affirmed a different anti-Semitic part of the affidavit that included the line about the Holocaust, saying, “The record speaks for itself.”
When asked Friday about an assertion in his court papers that “Jews, historically and in daily living, act through clans and in wolf pack syndrome,” he said, “That one sort of rings a bell.”
He said he was not anti-Semitic. “I was trying to show that everybody in the bankruptcy court was Jewish and I was not Jewish,” he said, “and I was being victimized by religious bias.”
In discussing the denial of his admission to the Illinois bar, Mr. Martin said the psychiatric exam listing him as having a “moderately severe personality defect” was spitefully written by an evaluator he had clashed with.
Mr. Martin, who says he is from a well-off banking and farming family, is clearly pleased with his newfound attention. But, he said, others have added to his work in “scary” ways.
“They Google ‘Islam’ and ‘Obama’ and my stuff comes up and they take that and kind of use that — like a Christmas tree, and they decorate it,” he said. For instance, he said, he did not necessarily ascribe to a widely circulated e-mail message from the Israeli right-wing activist Ruth Matar, which includes the false assertion, “If Obama were elected, he would be the first Arab-American president.”
He said he had at least come to “accept” Mr. Obama’s word that he had found Jesus Christ. His intent, he said, was only to educate.
Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 14, 2008
An article on Monday about Andy Martin, who has been a source of some of the false rumors about Senator Barack Obama’s background, referred incorrectly to an academic institution where a study of the rumors’ origins was conducted by Prof. Danielle Allen. The Institute for Advanced Study is located in Princeton, N.J., but is not part of Princeton University.
The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that helped set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”
That statement, contained in a press release, spun a complex tale about the ancestry of Mr. Obama, who is Christian.
The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama’s background.
Just last Friday, a woman told Senator John McCain at a town-hall-style meeting, “I have read about him,” and “he’s an Arab.” Mr. McCain corrected her.
Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.
But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.
An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.
He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”
Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.
Mr. Martin, in a series of interviews, did not dispute his influence in Obama rumors.
“Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” Mr. Martin said, adding, however, that some take his writings “and exaggerate them to suit their own fantasies.”
As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”
When questions were raised last week about Mr. Martin’s appearance and claims on “Hannity’s America” on Fox News, the program’s producer said Mr. Martin was clearly expressing his opinion and not necessarily fact.
It was not Mr. Martin's first turn on national television. The CBS News program "48 Hours" in 1993 devoted an hourlong program, "See You in Court; Civil War, Anthony Martin Clogs Legal System with Frivolous Lawsuits," to what it called his prolific filings. (Mr. Martin has also been known as Anthony Martin-Trigona.) He has filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval.
He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.
In the 1990s, Mr. Martin was jailed in a case in Florida involving a physical altercation.
His newfound prominence, and the persistence of his line of political attack — updated regularly on his Web site and through press releases — amazes those from his past.
“Well, that’s just a bookend for me,” said Tom Slade, a former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, whom Mr. Martin sued for refusing to support him. Mr. Slade said Mr. Martin was driven like “a run-over dog, but he’s fearless.”
Given Mr. Obama’s unusual background, which was the focus of his first book, it was perhaps bound to become fodder for some opposed to his candidacy.
Mr. Obama was raised mostly by his white mother, an atheist, and his grandparents, who were Protestant, in Hawaii. He hardly knew his father, a Kenyan from a Muslim family who variously considered himself atheist or agnostic, Mr. Obama wrote. For a few childhood years, Mr. Obama lived in Indonesia with a stepfather he described as loosely following a liberal Islam.
Theories about Mr. Obama’s background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin’s first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.
Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama’s heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including “Obama Nation,” the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.
“What he’s generating gets picked up in other places,” said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who has investigated the e-mail campaign’s circulation and origins, “and it’s an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time.”
Ms. Allen said Mr. Martin’s original work found amplification in 2006, when a man named Ted Sampley wrote an article painting Mr. Obama as a secret practitioner of Islam. Quoting liberally from Mr. Martin, the article circulated on the Internet, and its contents eventually found their way into various e-mail messages, particularly an added claim that Mr. Obama had attended “Jakarta’s Muslim Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging jihad on the rest of the world.”
Mr. Obama for two years attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, where he was taught about the Bible, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” and for two years went to an Indonesian public school open to all religions, where he was taught about the Koran.
Mr. Sampley, coincidentally, is a Vietnam veteran and longtime opponent of Mr. McCain and Senator John Kerry, both of whom he accused of ignoring his claims that American prisoners were left behind in Vietnam. He previously portrayed Mr. McCain as a “Manchurian candidate.” Speaking of Mr. Martin’s influence on his Obama writings, Mr. Sampley said, “I keyed off of his work.”
Mr. Martin’s depictions of Mr. Obama as a secret Muslim have found resonance among some Jewish voters who have received e-mail messages containing various versions of his initial theory, often by new authors and with new twists.
In his original press release, Mr. Martin wrote that he was personally “a strong supporter of the Muslim community.” But, he wrote of Mr. Obama, “it may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel.” He added, “His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles.”
Yet in various court papers, Mr. Martin had impugned Jews.
A motion he filed in a 1983 bankruptcy case called the judge “a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.”
In another motion, filed in 1983, Mr. Martin wrote, “I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did.”
In an interview, Mr. Martin denied some statements against Jews attributed to him in court papers, blaming malicious judges for inserting them.
But in his “48 Hours” interview in 1993, he affirmed a different anti-Semitic part of the affidavit that included the line about the Holocaust, saying, “The record speaks for itself.”
When asked Friday about an assertion in his court papers that “Jews, historically and in daily living, act through clans and in wolf pack syndrome,” he said, “That one sort of rings a bell.”
He said he was not anti-Semitic. “I was trying to show that everybody in the bankruptcy court was Jewish and I was not Jewish,” he said, “and I was being victimized by religious bias.”
In discussing the denial of his admission to the Illinois bar, Mr. Martin said the psychiatric exam listing him as having a “moderately severe personality defect” was spitefully written by an evaluator he had clashed with.
Mr. Martin, who says he is from a well-off banking and farming family, is clearly pleased with his newfound attention. But, he said, others have added to his work in “scary” ways.
“They Google ‘Islam’ and ‘Obama’ and my stuff comes up and they take that and kind of use that — like a Christmas tree, and they decorate it,” he said. For instance, he said, he did not necessarily ascribe to a widely circulated e-mail message from the Israeli right-wing activist Ruth Matar, which includes the false assertion, “If Obama were elected, he would be the first Arab-American president.”
He said he had at least come to “accept” Mr. Obama’s word that he had found Jesus Christ. His intent, he said, was only to educate.
Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 14, 2008
An article on Monday about Andy Martin, who has been a source of some of the false rumors about Senator Barack Obama’s background, referred incorrectly to an academic institution where a study of the rumors’ origins was conducted by Prof. Danielle Allen. The Institute for Advanced Study is located in Princeton, N.J., but is not part of Princeton University.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
NYT - But Have We Learned Enough?
October 26, 2008
Economic View
But Have We Learned Enough?
By N. GREGORY MANKIW
LIKE most economists, those at the International Monetary Fund are lowering their growth forecasts. The financial turmoil gripping Wall Street will probably spill over onto every other street in America. Most likely, current job losses are only the tip of an ugly iceberg.
But when Olivier Blanchard, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, was asked about the possibility of the world sinking into another Great Depression, he reassuringly replied that the chance was “nearly nil.” He added, “We’ve learned a few things in 80 years.”
Yes, we have. But have we learned what caused the Depression of the 1930s? Most important, have we learned enough to avoid doing the same thing again? continue...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says
Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says
* Story Highlights
* Sources say there is brewing tension between McCain aides and Palin
* Palin aide says she is trying to take control of her message
* "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," says a McCain adviser
From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNN
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
A Palin associate defended her, saying that she is "not good at process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robocalls were answers to process questions.
But this Palin source acknowledged that Palin is trying to take more control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu news conference on a Colorado tarmac.
Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt tried several times to end the unscheduled session.
"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Palin adviser recently said, arguing that "it's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.
The Politico reported Saturday on Palin's frustration, specifically with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped decide to limit Palin's initial press contact to high-profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.
In response, Wallace e-mailed CNN the same quote she gave the Politico: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there."
But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.
They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.
"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."
Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."
Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.
"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind; it brings out the worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating," this senior adviser said.
This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, has gone off the reservation as well, most recently by telling donors at a fundraiser that America's enemies will try to "test" Obama.
Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket.
John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John Kerry's strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political interests.
Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being scheduled for campaign events.
Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Bob Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.
With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.
"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."
CNN's Ed Hornick contributed to this report.
* Story Highlights
* Sources say there is brewing tension between McCain aides and Palin
* Palin aide says she is trying to take control of her message
* "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," says a McCain adviser
From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNN
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
A Palin associate defended her, saying that she is "not good at process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robocalls were answers to process questions.
But this Palin source acknowledged that Palin is trying to take more control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu news conference on a Colorado tarmac.
Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt tried several times to end the unscheduled session.
"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Palin adviser recently said, arguing that "it's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.
The Politico reported Saturday on Palin's frustration, specifically with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped decide to limit Palin's initial press contact to high-profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.
In response, Wallace e-mailed CNN the same quote she gave the Politico: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there."
But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.
They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.
"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."
Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."
Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.
"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind; it brings out the worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating," this senior adviser said.
This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, has gone off the reservation as well, most recently by telling donors at a fundraiser that America's enemies will try to "test" Obama.
Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket.
John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John Kerry's strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political interests.
Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being scheduled for campaign events.
Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Bob Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.
With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.
"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."
CNN's Ed Hornick contributed to this report.
Palin ‘going rogue’?
freep.com
October 25, 2008
Palin ‘going rogue’?
freep.com
UPDATED AT 8:03 PM -- A widening split has developed between Sarah Palin and key campaign aides for John McCain, with one McCain adviser saying the Republican vice presidential candidate is going "rogue," two reports say today.
Some McCain sources wonder whether Palin is intentionally making public her disagreements with campaign positions, says a CNN story (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html target=_blank>read it here).
“She takes no advice from anyone,” CNN quotes one unnamed McCain adviser as saying. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.”
The story cites a Palin aide or aides as saying she is just trying to “bust free” from a poorly managed campaign and take more control of her own campaign.
Meanwhile, Politico.com cites four unnamed people close to Palin as saying she is increasingly ignoring the advice of former Bush aides assigned to handle her.
The tension, the Politico report says (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14929.html target=_blank>read it here), comes amid a split in ranks between Republicans who see Palin as the potential Republican Party leader and those who stand ready to blame her if McCain is defeated.
October 25, 2008
Palin ‘going rogue’?
freep.com
UPDATED AT 8:03 PM -- A widening split has developed between Sarah Palin and key campaign aides for John McCain, with one McCain adviser saying the Republican vice presidential candidate is going "rogue," two reports say today.
Some McCain sources wonder whether Palin is intentionally making public her disagreements with campaign positions, says a CNN story (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html target=_blank>read it here).
“She takes no advice from anyone,” CNN quotes one unnamed McCain adviser as saying. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.”
The story cites a Palin aide or aides as saying she is just trying to “bust free” from a poorly managed campaign and take more control of her own campaign.
Meanwhile, Politico.com cites four unnamed people close to Palin as saying she is increasingly ignoring the advice of former Bush aides assigned to handle her.
The tension, the Politico report says (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14929.html target=_blank>read it here), comes amid a split in ranks between Republicans who see Palin as the potential Republican Party leader and those who stand ready to blame her if McCain is defeated.
Venezuela's Chavez calls Palin a confused beauty queen
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, renowned for colorful insults of world leaders, called U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a confused "beauty queen" on Friday after she said he was a dictator.
Chavez, a leftist who often mocks U.S. President George W. Bush, invoked the advice of Jesus Christ on how to handle the slights by Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska and a former beauty pageant winner.
"I saw the vice presidential candidate, there she was talking about 'the dictator Hugo Chavez.' The poor thing, you just feel sorry for her," he said during a televised broadcast.
"She's a beauty queen that they've pulled out to be a figurehead. We need to say as Christ did: Forgive her, she knows not what she's saying."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin, who calls herself a moose-hunting "hockey mom," as his running mate for the November 4 election in a surprise move meant to fire up the party's conservative Christian base.
McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have promised to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from Venezuela, which supplies about 11 percent of total U.S. oil imports.
The highly popular Chavez, who ousted the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela in September, has described the United States as a decadent empire and has reveled in the U.S. financial crisis.
The loquacious leader made headlines in 2006 by calling Bush "the devil" at a United Nations assembly. He also sparked controversy by calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel a political descendant of Adolf Hitler.
(Reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Chavez, a leftist who often mocks U.S. President George W. Bush, invoked the advice of Jesus Christ on how to handle the slights by Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska and a former beauty pageant winner.
"I saw the vice presidential candidate, there she was talking about 'the dictator Hugo Chavez.' The poor thing, you just feel sorry for her," he said during a televised broadcast.
"She's a beauty queen that they've pulled out to be a figurehead. We need to say as Christ did: Forgive her, she knows not what she's saying."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin, who calls herself a moose-hunting "hockey mom," as his running mate for the November 4 election in a surprise move meant to fire up the party's conservative Christian base.
McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have promised to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from Venezuela, which supplies about 11 percent of total U.S. oil imports.
The highly popular Chavez, who ousted the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela in September, has described the United States as a decadent empire and has reveled in the U.S. financial crisis.
The loquacious leader made headlines in 2006 by calling Bush "the devil" at a United Nations assembly. He also sparked controversy by calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel a political descendant of Adolf Hitler.
(Reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Meet Ashley Todd
May this sublimely sinister stunt go down in history as a testament to core Republican values and dastardry.
Charles Stuart, Puppetmaster A Look Back at a Notorious Boston Murder with Racist Overtones
Charles Stuart, Puppetmaster
A Look Back at a Notorious Boston Murder with Racist Overtones
Laurie D. T. Mann
Let me tell you a story
'bout a man named Charlie
On this famous, and fateful day,
Took his car into Boston,
Shot his wife and himself
So they wouldn't too look hard his way!
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a poor guy."
Charlie picked up his car phone
To call the cop dispatcher
Asked to send help to Mission Hill.
Said his wife was unconscious,
And he was lost and bleeding
Said a black man had been in on the kill.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a brave guy.''
"Round the black men up.''
Called the cops in Boston,
"One of them did this awful crime.''
But the Stuart boys knew
Their big brother was a killer
And they lied for him the whole time.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a sad guy.''
Finally Matt Stuart broke,
And he had to see the cops,
He told Charlie he had to tell.
Charlie hated being found out,
Couldn't deal with a trial,
So off the Tobin Bridge he fell.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
Almost never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a bad guy.''
What is it about the Stuart case that makes me want to rip the head off of every smiling white man I've ever seen? If you don't remember the notorious Stuart case, here are the facts:
On October 23, 1989, Carol Stuart, a pregnant, white lawyer was shot in the head in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. Mission Hill is a racially-mixed section of the city, with a high rate of drug users and crime. Her husband Charles, a fur store manager, who's been shot in the gut by the same maniac, called for EMTs over his car phone. It happened the people shooting the TV show 911 were riding through Boston that night, and were there as soon as the ambulance was. So the nation got some surprisingly graphic footage of a bleeding man in blue jeans being put into an ambulance. The phone call Charles made to the dispatcher was also broadcast nationwide. That night, Carol died of her injuries after her baby was delivered via C-section. The baby had immediate seizures due to blood and oxygen deprivation.
Charles said they'd been shot by a black man with a raspy voice. The Boston police turned Mission Hill into an armed camp, looking for this man. Almost every black man too old to ride a tricycle and too young to be in a wheelchair was stopped and searched, sometimes more than once. Newspaper headlines screamed about racially-motivated shootings. There were immediate calls for restoration of the death penalty. A few days later, Carol was buried, and a letter from her husband was read for the congregation ("Sleep with the angels, my love...''). Two weeks later, little Christopher Stuart died after his father had him taken off of life support.
The Boston police arrested a man named William Bennett a few days later. He was arrested for a video store robbery, but came under immediate suspicion as the murderer in the Stuart case. There were almost daily leaks from someone in the police department about how Bennett was probably the murderer. While he had a raspy voice and a massive criminal record, his mother insisted he was not around Mission Hill the night of the shootings. Just after Christmas, Charles Stuart identified William Bennett as the person who most looked and sounded like the man who shot them. A police source promised that Bennett would be formally charged with the shootings any time.
What's wrong with this picture? Everything I stated is true:
* A white woman is killed in a black neighborhood, and her prematurely-delivered baby dies a few weeks later.
* Her husband is seriously shot and says a black man did the shooting.
* The black man and his family protest his innocence in this case.
These stated facts may be true, but they are not the truth of the matter at all. The truth of the matter was that Charles Stuart manipulated his wife, his family, the Boston police, the media, and even the nation to almost get away with murder. Yes, it's easy now to look at the trail he left---talking to old classmates about murder ("as a joke''), taking out insurance policies on his wife, and stealing his employer's gun. But the fact is, we all bought his story.
I remember when the word first hit the local radio on Thursday, January 4th that Charles Stuart's car was left running on the Tobin Bridge and a suicide note was found in it. At that time, other than calling it a tragedy, the newscaster only said the police had a warrant out for his arrest. My initial reaction was that the police had really fouled up this time. There was no way Chuck Stuart could be guilty.
As the "true" story began to unfold on the radio that morning, it was far more chilling than the official version we had heard. The murder of Carol Stuart was not an act of random violence by a robber, but was the calculated murder of a wife by her husband. Charles Stuart played on the ingrained racism of the Boston community by selecting the locale of the murder and the race of the man he accused of the murder. Charles Stuart wove a web of lies that we were all too ready to believe. And he was aided and abetted by his younger brother Matt, a 23-year-old accessory who caught Carol's purse from his big brother's car window just after the shooting.
Matt Stuart, through family lawyers, maintains that he had no idea what was going on, and he thought it was just an insurance scam. This kid went on to be a pall-bearer for his sister-in-law's casket. Sure, he had no idea...While it took him a few months, his conscience eventually got the best of him, and he took the true story to his other brothers and sisters, their parents, and, eventually, to the police.
I can believe the public and the media being taken in by this case. However, I find myself very angry with the police in this case. Why were the police so ready to buy Stuart's story? Why didn't they investigate the Stuart's story a little more deeply? Are police investigators supposed to be a little more suspicious? And why did it take Matt Stuart's confession to get the police off of Willie Bennett?
Let's look at Willie Bennett, the man the police never formally charged with the murder. Bennett is an inarticulate man whom the Boston Public Schools labelled as a mental defective when he was a student. A school dropout, he's been involved in a number of shootings and robberies over the years, and spent many years in jail. On top of not being a model citizen, one of Bennett's crimes was the shooting of a police officer. And nothing gets the police angrier than dealing with a cop-shooter (I don't think he killed the cop). Unless, of course, they are dealing with a black ex-con who has at least one cop-shootingon his record.
While I never suspected Charles Stuart of the murder, I also never believed the case against WIllie Bennett. It seemed too convenient, too easy, The two main pieces of "evidence" against him was that Charles Stuart said the shooter had a raspy voice, and that he was wearing a jogging outfit. So the police were out after a black man wearing a jogging outfit in a racially-mixed area. Funny thing was, other than Charles Stuart, no one remembered seeing a man matching that description anywhere near the shooting.
Some hearsay was also involved in this case. The police reported that a teenaged friend of Bennett heard Bennett boast of the killings. But the teenager apparently formally recanted the story shortly thereafter, and now claims the police pressured him into making that statement. The Boston police have a history of "stretching the truth" to accuse the wrong person of murder, particularly when a black man is involved. There's another notorious case in the local courts right now, involving the murder of a police officer during a drug raid. It is clear that one of about nine people in the crack house that night shot Sherman Griffiths. The police have accused Albert Lewin, a black man, and bolstered their case against him by stretching the truth. But justice is supposed to be served when the facts are presented in court and a jury makes a determination based on those facts. When the police come down on Griffiths' partner and order him to commit perjury to bolster the case, where is justice served? Perhaps Albert Lewin is guilty. But convict him on facts, not on fantasy.
In many crimes, the police take an automatic "blame-the-victim" mentality. This tends to be particularly true of black on black crimes in poor neighborhoods. Boston had a rash of shootings, many of them drug-related in Mission Hill and other nearby neighborhoods over the fall. "It's a dangerous place to be," the police would say as they put another body in the back of an ambulance. There was some public outcry when a black grandmother was killed in her house in a driveby shooting. But nothing matched the public hysteria of the Stuart case.
The factor of racism cannot be underestimated in this case. It made the police and media sloppy, it reinforced the danger of black neighborhoods to a largely white public, and it made the black community furious. There have been calls for the police commissioner to resign, and for black boycotts of both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. There are calls for some sort of state commission to investigate the police and media handling of the case. It is not clear what will happen officially as a result of this case. I hope it will make us all a little more skeptical.
Another important factor in this case is the way the media made Charles and Carol Stuart out to be the "perfect couple." After the shooting, everyone said how much in love they were, how wonderful Carol was, and how distraught Charles was. But almost as soon as Charles' body was pulled from the river, a different portrait emerged. Neighbors commented that Carol often fought with Charles over his "Friday nights out." Charles was not looking forward to being a father. They had a big fight when Carol invited an insurance agent to their home, because she was concerned about how much Charles was spending on insurance. She even commented to friends that she couldn't understand why Charles had bought so much life insurance on her...
Why didn't any of these stories emerge earlier? Did people not tell them to reporters, out of respect for the dead? Or did some reporters hear the stories, and disregard them because they didn't paint the picture of Carol and Charles Stuart as the perfect couple?
The Stuart case is one of those instances where there are more questions than answers. For example:
Why did the younger Stuart brothers lie for their brother for over two months?
Matt Stuart told one brother, Michael, not long after the shooting. Yes, they were worried about telling their ailing parents, but to the point of letting their older brother get away with murder?
Why didn't the fur store owner check on the location of the fur store gun, when he heard that one of his employees was involved with a shooting with just that type of gun?
The fur store owner said that they only had the gun as an insurance requirement, and never made the connection until Charles committed suicide. Indeed, the gun was missing from the safe, and was later pulled out of the river where Matt Stuart had thrown it.
Why weren't the police a little more skeptical about Charles' story?
Some doctor familiar with the case said that abdominal wounds like the one Charles had are often self-inflicted. Because the wound was so serious, they did not think he shot himself.
What made Charles Stuart tick?
Charles Stuart was probably a sociopath. Only a sociopath could lie to his wife and everyone he knew the way he did, commit murder, and play the role of distraught husband almost perfectly. This murder was literally months, if not years in the planning. He showed no remorse for the murders of his wife and son. His suicide note only said he did not have the strength to go on.
Apparently, he wanted the insurance money to open a restaurant. A few days after his suicide, someone dug up a commercial the fur store had made. It showed a smiling Charles Stuart, admiring a model in a fur coat.
It made me want to kick in the TV screen.
Document: Charles Stuart, Puppetmaster A Look Back at a Notorious Boston Murder with Racist Overtones
Web URL: http://www.dpsinfo.com/essays/charlie.html
Updated: 05/31/2008 22:08:59
related article
A Look Back at a Notorious Boston Murder with Racist Overtones
Laurie D. T. Mann
Let me tell you a story
'bout a man named Charlie
On this famous, and fateful day,
Took his car into Boston,
Shot his wife and himself
So they wouldn't too look hard his way!
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a poor guy."
Charlie picked up his car phone
To call the cop dispatcher
Asked to send help to Mission Hill.
Said his wife was unconscious,
And he was lost and bleeding
Said a black man had been in on the kill.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a brave guy.''
"Round the black men up.''
Called the cops in Boston,
"One of them did this awful crime.''
But the Stuart boys knew
Their big brother was a killer
And they lied for him the whole time.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
No he never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a sad guy.''
Finally Matt Stuart broke,
And he had to see the cops,
He told Charlie he had to tell.
Charlie hated being found out,
Couldn't deal with a trial,
So off the Tobin Bridge he fell.
Chorus
Did he ever get caught,
Almost never got caught!
'Cause he told such an artful lie,
Said they both got shot
By a black man in Boston,
And everybody said "What a bad guy.''
What is it about the Stuart case that makes me want to rip the head off of every smiling white man I've ever seen? If you don't remember the notorious Stuart case, here are the facts:
On October 23, 1989, Carol Stuart, a pregnant, white lawyer was shot in the head in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. Mission Hill is a racially-mixed section of the city, with a high rate of drug users and crime. Her husband Charles, a fur store manager, who's been shot in the gut by the same maniac, called for EMTs over his car phone. It happened the people shooting the TV show 911 were riding through Boston that night, and were there as soon as the ambulance was. So the nation got some surprisingly graphic footage of a bleeding man in blue jeans being put into an ambulance. The phone call Charles made to the dispatcher was also broadcast nationwide. That night, Carol died of her injuries after her baby was delivered via C-section. The baby had immediate seizures due to blood and oxygen deprivation.
Charles said they'd been shot by a black man with a raspy voice. The Boston police turned Mission Hill into an armed camp, looking for this man. Almost every black man too old to ride a tricycle and too young to be in a wheelchair was stopped and searched, sometimes more than once. Newspaper headlines screamed about racially-motivated shootings. There were immediate calls for restoration of the death penalty. A few days later, Carol was buried, and a letter from her husband was read for the congregation ("Sleep with the angels, my love...''). Two weeks later, little Christopher Stuart died after his father had him taken off of life support.
The Boston police arrested a man named William Bennett a few days later. He was arrested for a video store robbery, but came under immediate suspicion as the murderer in the Stuart case. There were almost daily leaks from someone in the police department about how Bennett was probably the murderer. While he had a raspy voice and a massive criminal record, his mother insisted he was not around Mission Hill the night of the shootings. Just after Christmas, Charles Stuart identified William Bennett as the person who most looked and sounded like the man who shot them. A police source promised that Bennett would be formally charged with the shootings any time.
What's wrong with this picture? Everything I stated is true:
* A white woman is killed in a black neighborhood, and her prematurely-delivered baby dies a few weeks later.
* Her husband is seriously shot and says a black man did the shooting.
* The black man and his family protest his innocence in this case.
These stated facts may be true, but they are not the truth of the matter at all. The truth of the matter was that Charles Stuart manipulated his wife, his family, the Boston police, the media, and even the nation to almost get away with murder. Yes, it's easy now to look at the trail he left---talking to old classmates about murder ("as a joke''), taking out insurance policies on his wife, and stealing his employer's gun. But the fact is, we all bought his story.
I remember when the word first hit the local radio on Thursday, January 4th that Charles Stuart's car was left running on the Tobin Bridge and a suicide note was found in it. At that time, other than calling it a tragedy, the newscaster only said the police had a warrant out for his arrest. My initial reaction was that the police had really fouled up this time. There was no way Chuck Stuart could be guilty.
As the "true" story began to unfold on the radio that morning, it was far more chilling than the official version we had heard. The murder of Carol Stuart was not an act of random violence by a robber, but was the calculated murder of a wife by her husband. Charles Stuart played on the ingrained racism of the Boston community by selecting the locale of the murder and the race of the man he accused of the murder. Charles Stuart wove a web of lies that we were all too ready to believe. And he was aided and abetted by his younger brother Matt, a 23-year-old accessory who caught Carol's purse from his big brother's car window just after the shooting.
Matt Stuart, through family lawyers, maintains that he had no idea what was going on, and he thought it was just an insurance scam. This kid went on to be a pall-bearer for his sister-in-law's casket. Sure, he had no idea...While it took him a few months, his conscience eventually got the best of him, and he took the true story to his other brothers and sisters, their parents, and, eventually, to the police.
I can believe the public and the media being taken in by this case. However, I find myself very angry with the police in this case. Why were the police so ready to buy Stuart's story? Why didn't they investigate the Stuart's story a little more deeply? Are police investigators supposed to be a little more suspicious? And why did it take Matt Stuart's confession to get the police off of Willie Bennett?
Let's look at Willie Bennett, the man the police never formally charged with the murder. Bennett is an inarticulate man whom the Boston Public Schools labelled as a mental defective when he was a student. A school dropout, he's been involved in a number of shootings and robberies over the years, and spent many years in jail. On top of not being a model citizen, one of Bennett's crimes was the shooting of a police officer. And nothing gets the police angrier than dealing with a cop-shooter (I don't think he killed the cop). Unless, of course, they are dealing with a black ex-con who has at least one cop-shootingon his record.
While I never suspected Charles Stuart of the murder, I also never believed the case against WIllie Bennett. It seemed too convenient, too easy, The two main pieces of "evidence" against him was that Charles Stuart said the shooter had a raspy voice, and that he was wearing a jogging outfit. So the police were out after a black man wearing a jogging outfit in a racially-mixed area. Funny thing was, other than Charles Stuart, no one remembered seeing a man matching that description anywhere near the shooting.
Some hearsay was also involved in this case. The police reported that a teenaged friend of Bennett heard Bennett boast of the killings. But the teenager apparently formally recanted the story shortly thereafter, and now claims the police pressured him into making that statement. The Boston police have a history of "stretching the truth" to accuse the wrong person of murder, particularly when a black man is involved. There's another notorious case in the local courts right now, involving the murder of a police officer during a drug raid. It is clear that one of about nine people in the crack house that night shot Sherman Griffiths. The police have accused Albert Lewin, a black man, and bolstered their case against him by stretching the truth. But justice is supposed to be served when the facts are presented in court and a jury makes a determination based on those facts. When the police come down on Griffiths' partner and order him to commit perjury to bolster the case, where is justice served? Perhaps Albert Lewin is guilty. But convict him on facts, not on fantasy.
In many crimes, the police take an automatic "blame-the-victim" mentality. This tends to be particularly true of black on black crimes in poor neighborhoods. Boston had a rash of shootings, many of them drug-related in Mission Hill and other nearby neighborhoods over the fall. "It's a dangerous place to be," the police would say as they put another body in the back of an ambulance. There was some public outcry when a black grandmother was killed in her house in a driveby shooting. But nothing matched the public hysteria of the Stuart case.
The factor of racism cannot be underestimated in this case. It made the police and media sloppy, it reinforced the danger of black neighborhoods to a largely white public, and it made the black community furious. There have been calls for the police commissioner to resign, and for black boycotts of both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. There are calls for some sort of state commission to investigate the police and media handling of the case. It is not clear what will happen officially as a result of this case. I hope it will make us all a little more skeptical.
Another important factor in this case is the way the media made Charles and Carol Stuart out to be the "perfect couple." After the shooting, everyone said how much in love they were, how wonderful Carol was, and how distraught Charles was. But almost as soon as Charles' body was pulled from the river, a different portrait emerged. Neighbors commented that Carol often fought with Charles over his "Friday nights out." Charles was not looking forward to being a father. They had a big fight when Carol invited an insurance agent to their home, because she was concerned about how much Charles was spending on insurance. She even commented to friends that she couldn't understand why Charles had bought so much life insurance on her...
Why didn't any of these stories emerge earlier? Did people not tell them to reporters, out of respect for the dead? Or did some reporters hear the stories, and disregard them because they didn't paint the picture of Carol and Charles Stuart as the perfect couple?
The Stuart case is one of those instances where there are more questions than answers. For example:
Why did the younger Stuart brothers lie for their brother for over two months?
Matt Stuart told one brother, Michael, not long after the shooting. Yes, they were worried about telling their ailing parents, but to the point of letting their older brother get away with murder?
Why didn't the fur store owner check on the location of the fur store gun, when he heard that one of his employees was involved with a shooting with just that type of gun?
The fur store owner said that they only had the gun as an insurance requirement, and never made the connection until Charles committed suicide. Indeed, the gun was missing from the safe, and was later pulled out of the river where Matt Stuart had thrown it.
Why weren't the police a little more skeptical about Charles' story?
Some doctor familiar with the case said that abdominal wounds like the one Charles had are often self-inflicted. Because the wound was so serious, they did not think he shot himself.
What made Charles Stuart tick?
Charles Stuart was probably a sociopath. Only a sociopath could lie to his wife and everyone he knew the way he did, commit murder, and play the role of distraught husband almost perfectly. This murder was literally months, if not years in the planning. He showed no remorse for the murders of his wife and son. His suicide note only said he did not have the strength to go on.
Apparently, he wanted the insurance money to open a restaurant. A few days after his suicide, someone dug up a commercial the fur store had made. It showed a smiling Charles Stuart, admiring a model in a fur coat.
It made me want to kick in the TV screen.
Document: Charles Stuart, Puppetmaster A Look Back at a Notorious Boston Murder with Racist Overtones
Web URL: http://www.dpsinfo.com/essays/charlie.html
Updated: 05/31/2008 22:08:59
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