The other Black Man relavent in the Herman Cain fiasco...and it's not who you think it is...

A couple of years ago, the residents of my hometown, Washington D.C. were treated to the spectacle of Marion Barry's arrest, and his subsequent...

Well, I'm not going to say downfall...

Let us say his trials due to his addiction to crack cocaine.



(Note: if you've watched the above video, just so you know, Jesse Jackson did not run for Mayor.)

I was in my teens at the time when the problem first became apparent to one and all. I was living in heavily suburban, but black Prince Georges County, Maryland, just over the border from substantially poorer, but still black District of Columbia.

Years before he arrest, I was a sophmore in High School when I saw the Mayor onstage, making a speech about the dangers of drug addition, and doing it in a mania very reminiscent of present-day Charlie Sheen. I knew the man was doing drugs. I just laughed it off at the time as ironic, and went to buy more of these new-fangled things called CDs.

I was a Sophmore at the University of Maryland when they finally got him.  I watched this very broadcast of the CBS Evening News after about a full days coverage from the Local News.  These where the days when Oprah wasn't yet Oprah, and you could have 3-4 hours of Local News a night.

America (by which I mean White America) was all atwitter.  A Mayor? An elected Official doing drugs?? Surely, America thought, this menace would be going to jail.

Hold up.  Not so fast.

The problem for the outside world...and by outside world I mean the non-African-American world outside of the Washington D.C. Area, was that the champion for putting this man behind bars was prosecutor Jay Stephens, a white Reagan appointee (featured at the 1:49 mark of the video). Even I knew at that young, still somewhat politically naive age that there was no way Black Washington D.C. was ever going to let a white Reagan Appointee tell them who was or who wasn't going to be their Mayor.

Four years after the arrest, the black residents of D.C. proved me right when, even after spending two years in jail, Marion Barry was returned him his fourth and final term as Mayor of the District.

I believe we're starting to see somewhat similar circumstances flow around the Herman Cain situation. But instead of the hard-headed, prideful (sometimes overly so) black residents of D.C., this is about the hard-headed, hyper-prideful, rabid, hyper-right wing base of the Republican Party.


And there is no way that any D.C. Establishment Cocktail Party Republican is going to tell them they have to "accept Mitt Romney" as their nominee.

While these folks hate Mitt Romney, they probably hate the D.C. Establishment Republicans even more. These are the people who say they'd rather lose to Barack Obama with one of their faithful, than to even make it close with Multiple Choice Mitt.

These are people who hate the mainstream media so much, who distrust it so much that they'd rather stick a thumb in their own eye and flush their electoral chances down the tubes in order to prove to the world just how hardcore they are. More importantly, they'll do this to prove that they can't be pushed around by the Villagers in the D.C. Republican Establishment.

That's why I think we're seeing a bump in Cain's fundraising numbers and his polling numbers. The establishment is trying to tell the base that he's dead (as a Candidate), and the base is saying...hold up, not so fast!!



(Note: For those who want to relive the glory days of the 1990s, there was a Documentary made about two years ago called The Nine Lives of Marion Barry. It didn't get picked up for distribution, but was shown on HBO and is now available at the iTunes Store for 9.99. It was worth a look.)

Hardall: Why the International Monetary Fund's Chief getting arrested matters (VIDEO)

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Missed Stories: Lara Logan's Interview on 60 Minutes (VIDEO)

One of the things President Obama mentioned in his speech about his long-form Birth Certificate, was the fact that the Media gets us all distracted on things (like his birth certificate) that we don't need to get distracted on.

Unfortunately, sometimes other, actually relevant events can swamp aside other, equally important stories.

One of those unfortunate circumstances took place during Sunday's announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. We lost track of Lara Logan's interview talking about her sexual assault while working on the Egyptian Uprising Story for CBS.

This is one of those instances for a woman in Ms. Logan's position, that's both hard and necessary. To have to relive that order is hard, but to share that experience with the world, on a major news telecast, is necessary because it helps chip away at the stigma that seems to still exist about these crimes. Still, she got up in front the camera, and broke that code of silence. I don't even know Ms. Logan, but I'm proud of her for doing this.

It's a damn shame that a proper discussion of what she said was swept aside. Well, at least here, you have a chance to see the interview in case you missed it:



And 60 Minutes Overtime:

By the way, INTERPOL has issued an arrest warrant for Julian Assange

Great piece from Kramer R. Phillips (via the Twitter).  Nothing to do with the leaks, but hey, an arrest warrant's an arrest warrant:

Interpol, the international police organization, has issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Mr. Assange was added to the international list of “wanted” list in relation to alleged sex crimes committed in Sweden.

He is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, after an investigation by Swedish prosecurtors into his encounters with two women in Sweden in August.

Mr. Assange had denied any allegations, saying the allegations are motivated by politics. His website, Wikileaks, continues to leak documents related to foreign communications between the U.S. and its diplomatic partners.

Why do I get the feeling that Wikileaks isn't solely about demanding more transparency from (apparently from only the U.S.) Government, and an equal share about covering his ass in case Interpol came after him?

Former Alaska Judge Joe Miller is going to get someone Court-Martialed...

You'd figure that a former Judge would've known better that...I don't know...arresting a Journalist with your own private Security force, yet...here he is doing just that.

But I had to have private Security force. The School I hired out made me.

Well...

Was Joe Miller required to bring a security detail to his town hall meeting Sunday at Central Middle School in Alaska?

That's what Miller, the Republican Senate candidate, told two national cable news networks Monday in the wake of the arrest by his security squad of an online journalist at his public event.

But the school district said there was no such requirement made of Miller -- he only had to provide a hall and parking lot monitor, and advise participants of school district courtesy and food rules.

So that's one bald-faced lie.  He needed a teenager with maybe a flashlight.  Instead, he used a bunch of Active-Duty Soldiers to rough up a journalist.

And there's even a major problem with that:

Meanwhile, the Army says that two of the guards who assisted in the arrest of the journalist and who tried to prevent two other reporters from filming the detention were active-duty soldiers moonlighting for Miller's security contractor, the Drop Zone, a Spenard surplus store and protection service.

The soldiers, Spc. Tyler Ellingboe, 22, and Sgt. Alexander Valdez, 31, are assigned to the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Richardson. Maj. Bill Coppernoll, the public affairs officer for the Army in Alaska, said the two soldiers did not have permission from their current chain of command to work for the Drop Zone, but the Army was still researching whether previous company or brigade commanders authorized their employment.

The Army allows off-duty soldiers to take outside employment if the job doesn't interfere with their readiness, doesn't risk their own injury and doesn't negatively affect the "good order" and discipline of their unit, Coppernoll said.

"They've got to be up front with the chain of command," Coppernoll said. "The chain of command needs to agree they can do that without affecting the readiness and the whole slew of things that are part of being a soldier that they need to do first."

Miller's chief guard at the Middle School event, Drop Zone owner William Fulton, said it wasn't his job to ensure soldiers complied with the regulations, though he said he informs them of their duty.

"They're adults -- they are responsible for themselves," Fulton said.

The fact that they were employed isn't the only problem, the fact that their employment involved them in a Political campaign, is what's going to get them into real trouble.

D.W.M. (There and back again, Edition)

Maybe cab-attacker Michael Enright was who we thought he was all along.

According to the New York Daily News (via TPM):

When he was arrested Tuesday in midtown, Enright had a personal diary filled with pages of "pretty strong anti-Muslim comments," a police source said.

The source said Enright's journal equated Muslims with "killers, ungrateful for the help they were being offered, filthy murderers without a conscience."

And check out the picture of himself he posted on Facebook.

Yeah, I wanna be his friend...and I take back what I said yesterday.

Let's be honest, posing with a pump-action shotgun, rockin' it like you're playing Guitar Hero doesn't make you're crazy.  But couple this photo after you've tried to throat slash a New York Cabbie???

D.W.M., continued (More weirdness)

According to TPM, the Driving While Muslim story keeps getting weirder and weirder...

Michael Enright is a film student at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and has been working with the Intersection International, an interfaith and multicultural effort which seeks to promote justice and peace. The project's website is strongly supportive of the Cordoba House project in lower Manhattan and videos of its leader, Imam Faisel Rauf, are posted on their website.

The 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker had been to Afghanistan recently, working on a documentary on a Marine unit his high school buddy served with. His earlier efforts to embed with his friend were the subject of a profile in the local paper.

The documentary he was working on was "completely nonpolitical," Enright told the newspaper. "It's just showing the young people who are spearheading our foreign policy. They're doing what I don't have to do."

Enright told police he had been working with an Internet media company and had recently spent time with a combat unit in Afghanistan filming military exercises according to The New York Post.

A former high school classmate of Enright's, speaking to TPMMuckraker on background, expressed shock about the crime and spent the morning eliminating electronic footprints that connected the two. "It's just disgusting, sad, horrific," he said, adding that, like the group Enright was working with, he supports the Cordoba Project.

You gotta figure that something about Enright was chemically amiss. If he really had truck against Muslims (like say an Cordoba House basher), he had ample opportunity to get stabby in Afghanistan (or maybe he was worried about being outnumbered).

Still, at the very least, this is a person skilled in dealing with Muslims on a daily basis on their home turf. What sets him off her? Either strong drink or a chemical inbalance of another kind, which is going to require a Doctor's help.

D.W.M.

As if New York City wasn't dangerous enough...

I got this from TPM. It looks like the Cabbie is alive (enough to make a statement to the press), and New York City Police are treating this as a hate crime. (I'll set aside how ironic that statement is).

TPM: Alvin Greene Indicted.

Thanks, South Carolina!

Wonderful news...Part 2

Because it's Kansas, I'm shocked...but Scott Roeder, the man who killed (murdered...assassinated) Abortion Doctor George Tiller has been convicted.

Usually, I can managed a "yay" at the bottom of posts like these...but Dr. Tiller is still dead. His family is still mourning his loss, and the killer who sought to prevent abortions being provided in Kansas may ultimately get his way.

It's Yitzhak Rabin's assassination all over again, but granted on a much smaller scale.

"This thing's coming out an inch at a time, and there's still a mile to go..."

Last night on Countdown, I thought Keith went a little overboard in his comparisons of the Landrieu Phone...thing...to Watergate. I thought this was odd, since Keith had recently admitted that he had been a little over the top on recent shows...

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But now, instead it seems...he may have been onto something...

Granted, Andrew Breitbart paying one of the Mary Landrieu "burglars" (we might as well call them that) may be nothing. But as of last night, I thought this was O'Keefe's ego getting out of control and doing something stupid...but doing it on his own.

But now, we have to ask...what did Breitbart know...and when did he know it? Did he authorize these actions? Did he play any part in these actions?

And, of course, was someone paying him?

You can bet the Federal Marshals are going to be asking him these questions in the next 24 hours.

"This thing's coming out an inch at a time, and there's still a mile to go..."

More...surely...as it comes...

A Loving message to my Father's new family on Thanksgiving Eve (VIDEO)

Don't worry. They know what I'm talking about...

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MSNBC: Rachel Maddow on the Census Killing (VIDEO)

"I don't think Federal Law Enforcement would still be involved, a week and a half after the body was been found if there wasn't still that very serious concern..."

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The Justice Department isn't saying jack, which is fine. Work the case. Nail down the details. Tell us when you've got something.

TPM: Pinky victim will not be charged...

...even though he, you know...started it.

"He's more a victim at this point," [Capt. Ross Bonfiglio told TPM's Ben Frumin], even though "he was admittedly the primary aggressor."

"Nothing's black and white in a case like this," he said, noting that proportion can matter just as much as the order of events.

"If [bite victim, William J. Rice] was the initial aggressor and the guy cut his head off, it doesn't mean it was justified."

TPM: We're resorting to assault???

Oh boy. Coming after the Miami Times story, refering to an incident in Florida, something has also happened out here in L.A. (actually way out in Ventura County...very Conservative Country), only this time it was the Pro-Reform person assaulting the Anti-Reform person.

A KTLA report from a health care rally near Los Angeles last night may not include gun-toting protesters, but it does describe another sort of weapon: teeth. As in, a pro-reform protester used his teeth to bite off the finger of an anti-reformer.

According to KTLA, a group of anti-health care reform protesters set up across the street from about 100 pro-reform demonstrators at a MoveOn.org-sponsored rally. Apparently, a pro-reformer walking through the anti-reform group to join the rest of his gang got into an altercation with a 65-year-old man who was on the anti-health care team.

What happened next is not entirely clear. The initial report from KTLA, citing an unnamed witness, said the man who got his finger bitten off was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side and punched someone from the anti-reform side, who responded by biting off the pro-reformer's pinky.

UPDATE 2:03pm, Pacific: Pinky Man, hereafter indentified as William J. Rice, apparently threw the first punch.

Oh, and he had Medicare.

Miami Herald: They're resorting to assault...

From the Miami Herald:

A 65-year-old man rallying in favor of healthcare reform was knocked to the ground by a man who disagreed with the call for a government-run health plan outside of a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce meeting headlined by Sen. Bill Nelson.

Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about 40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle Island and began arguing with the crowd. The man, who only gave his first name as Raul, said Perrero called him a Spanish curse word. He punched Perrero in the face. Perrero fell to the ground and lay motionless for a few minutes.

TPM: An update to the "Reverse B" attack in Denver.

Oy.

Following up on an earlier post. We now have this from TPM.

Late Update: OK, the plot thickens...Gawker asserts that Ariel Attack is actually the same person as Maurice, noting the facts that only one person has been arrested, and that the anarchist posting says Ariel "is listed in the jail records and media under her birth name." It seems like that's probably right.

Assuming that's true, there's a broader implication for the story. It seemed to us in writing this post earlier that the goal of the attack was to discredit conservatives, by getting them blamed for it. That was because the one person who had been reliably reported to have been arrested had a background working for a group supportive of Democrats. But now, given that the person arrested has anarchist ties and is on the record as a vocal left-wing opponent of Obama, it looks like that interpretation was wrong. It now seems more likely that the goal was more straight-forward: to express anger at Obama and the Democrats.

Apologies for the evolving take on this story. We'll keep working to get a handle on it as things progress.

TPM: Remember the Reverse "B" attack?

Like I said, there's what you know, and what you think you know...

Do you remember the Pittsburgh Sociopath that carved reverse B into her face, claiming she'd be attacked by Obama Supporters?

Looks like there's a possibility, that just maybe that yesterday's attack on Democratic Party HQ in Denver may be (could be) something similar:

Remember the disturbed young John McCain volunteer, who, in the closing days of last year's presidential campaign, carved a B into her face and pretended she'd been attacked by an African-American Obama supporter? Well it looks like we may have a similar case on our hands -- only in reverse.

To explain:

Two men were arrested yesterday after an attack on the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, in which 11 windows, displaying posters supporting health-care reform, were smashed.

It looked like a case of conservative rage boiling over. State party chair Pat Waak thought so, declaring, in comments eagerly picked up by Think Progress: "Clearly there's been an effort on the other side to stir up hate. I think this is the consequence of it."

But wait. Police soon announced that they had arrested 24-year old Maurice Schwenkler, who allegedly wore a shirt over his face and latex gloves during the attack, then fled on a bicycle before quickly being caught. And Schwenkler doesn't exactly fight the profile of a right-winger.

According to campaign finance records looked at by the Denver Post, a person by that name last November was paid $500 by a group called Colorado Citizens Coalition. That group supported numerous Democratic campaigns last cycle, and the woman registered as its treasurer, Julie Wells, has been active with several liberal causes. Wells did not respond to TPMmuckraker's request for comment.

Schwenkler was also reportedly arrested for unlawful assembly at the 2008 GOP convention in Minneapolis.

And according to WestWord, the Denver alternative weekly, Schwenkler's address is the former location of the Derailer Bicycle Collective, a "radical, free bike fix-it shop". The current owner of the house is a well-known progressive activist who was once the U.S. coordinator for "Potters For Peace"

What about the other attacker? Details are sketchy, but an anarchist news site, for what its worth, is reporting that a person named Ariel Attack, a "Denver-based anarchist," has been arrested in connection with the incident. A supporter writes: "At this moment, we do not know Ariel's status within the jail, especially regarding her gender classification."

Posts by a writer using the name Ariel Attack have appeared at a site called Queers Against Obama, whose tagline declares that "Obamamania is nothing more than yet another manufactured nationalist frenzy." One post is titled "Obama's War On Queer and Trans Youth."

So there you have it. Recently, we've gotten a few glimpses into the fetid cesspool of hate and violence that characterizes the far-right fringe. Smashing windows is, of course, a far cry from murder. But are we now being reminded that the right doesn't have a monopoly on political violence?

Still, it's hard to know what's really going on here. If Marcus Schwenkler and Ariel Attack are indeed the perpetrators, was this a deliberate bait-and-switch, similar to the one perpetrated by the McCain volunteer, with the goal being to discredit conservative opponents of health-care reform? Or, was it more straightforward: far-left nihilists using violence to express their contempt for Obama and the Democratic party? Or some twisted combination of both?

Who knows? But we'll keep you posted as the facts get clearer.

Think Progress: More vandalism...

Democratic Party Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, vandalized today. I immediately though about what happened in both Indiana, and Arkansas.

More extensive coverage of the incident can be found at the Denver Post.

A 24-year-old arrested this morning on suspicion of smashing 11 windows at Colorado Democratic Party headquarters tried to conceal his identity while allegedly committing the crime, according to police descriptions.

Maurice Schwenkler wore a shirt over his face, a hooded sweatshirt and latex gloves before he and another man fled the scene on bicycles. Police arrested Schwenkler after a short chase. The other suspect remains at-large.

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak blamed the vandalism on animosity surrounding the health care debate, though Denver Police declined to comment on possible motives.

The shattered windows were emblazoned with posters touting President Barack Obama and the Democratic position on Health Care Reform.

The Hill: Bobby Rush's Niece a possible domestic...

Just because in my last posting about it, I wanted to set the record straight that this may not be what it appeared to me at first (another example of someone threatening Congressmen and their families over Health Care). The Hill provided a few more details, but not much more past what we had this morning.

Rep. Rush's niece victim of alleged arson
By Christina Wilkie
Posted: 08/19/09 04:57 PM [ET]

A car belonging to Rep. Bobby Rush's (D-Ill.) niece was doused with an accelerant and set on fire in Lansing, Ill., on Tuesday.

According to NBC's Chicago affiliate, 28-year-old Kaneisha Leira, the daughter of Rush's brother Marlon Rush, had just gotten into her Lexus sedan when "a man with a match" approached the car and threw it at the vehicle.

The driver, unaware that accelerant had already been poured around the car, did not exit the vehicle quickly enough, and suffered minor burns.

Police arrived to discover a Lexus engulfed in flames. They also found aluminum cans of accelerant around the vehicle.

Leira refused to go to the hospital and was treated on site. A neighbor observed Leira leaving the scene in a police vehicle.

A source told The Hill that it appeared to be a "domestic" incident unrelated to the congressman, but police are still investigating.