Michael Beisecker’s Associated Press story about Thursday’s proceedings in the federal corruption trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards was 504 words long.
“Democrat” was not one of those words.
Category: Corruption
It Turns Out, There Are Two Americas
In one of those Americas, people used to take John Edwards seriously.
In the Other America, we always knew he was a phony.
In the America that once nominated Edwards for vice-president of the United States, the cross-examination of a former Edwards aide is seen as good news for the accused.
In the Other America, we’re laughing our asses off at Ace’s fisking.
In one of those Americas, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan were considered great “progressive” bloggers to work for the 2008 Edwards presidential campaign.
In the Other America, we’re kinda noticing a telltale silence from Marcotte and McEwan — zero, zilch, nada — about the ongoing trial of Edwards, for whom they once briefly worked.
International Intrigue Surrounds Harvard University Graduate Student Bo Guagua
Livin’ La Vida Guagua: Son of ChiCom official partied down in England
In February, 41-year-old British businessman Neil Heywood died in China. Gu Kailai, wife of provincial Communist Party official Bo Xilai, reportedly confessed to Heywood’s murder:
According to Mr Wang, Mr Heywood, a fixer with decades of experience in China and a family friend of Mr Bo and his wife, was held down in a hotel room in Chongqing and forced to drink cyanide. Subsequently, Mrs Gu allegedly confessed to the crime. “Gu said ‘I did it’ three times to Wang,” a diplomatic source with knowledge of Wang’s account said. “It was a gruesome scene, Heywood spat the cyanide out and they had to give him more.”
In recent weeks, a series of allegations about the alleged crime have begun circulating freely, an odd phenomenon in a country as closed and censored as China, prompting speculation that the Communist Party was trying to smear Mr Bo and his wife ahead of the announcement of the findings of an investigation.
Mr Heywood, Mrs Gu and her son, Bo Guagua, are said to have had a close relationship until a quarrel over an “economic” matter, according to the Chinese government. At the time of his death, Mr Heywood was thought to be raising money for an £80 million shopping centre dedicated to British luxury goods.
Following this so far? OK, so the son of the Gu Kailai and Bo Xilai is a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Bo Guagua has been the subject of much gossip. The New York Times reported last week:
After a pampered childhood in the walled compounds of the Chinese capital, he was sent off for schooling in England, where he developed a reputation as an academically indifferent bon vivant with a weakness for European sports cars, first-class air travel, equestrian sports and the tango. . . .
“If you’re discreet, they look the other way,” the former government employee said. “But Guagua’s behavior was striking by the standards; urinating against a fence at Oxford, kissing foreign girls — it all goes down bad in China.” . . .
American officials say he arrived in a red Ferrari last year to pick up the American ambassador to China’s daughter for a date. Classmates at Harvard say they have seen him driving around in a Porsche.
Hmmm. OK, so now the alleged ChiCom party boy has seen fit to issue a statement to the Harvard Crimson:
Recently, there has been increasing attention from the press on my private life. As a result of these speculations, I feel responsible to the public to provide an account of the facts. I am deeply concerned about the events surrounding my family, but I have no comments to make regarding the ongoing investigation. . . .
My tuition and living expenses at Harrow School, University of Oxford and Harvard University were funded exclusively by two sources — scholarships earned independently, and my mother’s generosity from the savings she earned from her years as a successful lawyer and writer. . . .
During my time at Oxford, it is true that I participated in ‘Bops,’ a type of common Oxford social event, many of which are themed. These events are a regular feature of social life at Oxford and most students take part in these college-wide activities. . . .
I have never driven a Ferrari. I have also not been to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing since 1998 (when I obtained a previous U.S. Visa), nor have I ever been to the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in China.
What’s the truth here? Dunno.
Just saw the story via Memeorandum and found it intriguing. Wish I could find the “higher education bubble” angle, or maybe land a screenplay deal for what would certainly make a blockbuster movie.
Closet-Case Democratic Party Official Infected Ex-Girlfriend With AIDS Virus?
Jay Parmley and Rebecca Burgin
Last week, we noted that Jay Parmley, who was forced to resign as executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party after being accused of sexually harassing a 26-year-old male staffer, had claimed to be the victim of “right-wing political enemies.”
Alas, it appears that the real victim was a young Oklahoma woman who says Parmley infected her with the AIDS virus:
Parmley’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca Burgin told TheDC that Parmley forever changed her life by making her HIV-positive. She’s worried, she said, that Parmley may have done to someone else what he did to her.
“My motivation for talking to you was that I have read the articles, I have read the letter [that Ortega sent to Parmley detailing sexual harassment allegations] and everything like that,” Burgin said.
“And after Jay and I broke up, the biggest concern that I had was, ‘what if this happened to somebody else? Would he do this to someone else?’ … My biggest concern is for anybody else that has had a relationship with him that he did not tell.” . . .
“When Jay and I met, I was 20 and he was 32,” she said. “To me, it seems to be a pattern, potentially… The unnerving thing to me is that it looks like he uses his position of authority to prey on younger adults.” . . .
Parmley served as national president of the Young Democrats of America from 1999 to 2001, then becoming executive director and chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party until 2005. . . .
In 2005 he left Oklahoma to become a Mississippi state liaison to the Democratic National Committee under chairman Howard Dean, during the former Vermont governor’s 50-state strategy campaign. He took a similar role in South Carolina in 2007, and became executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party in 2009. In May 2011, the North Carolina Democratic Party hired him as its executive director. . . .
“I met him — I was a student in college and he was my American Government professor,” she told TheDC in a phone interview. “Upon completing that class, we started dating. We dated for a little over three years.” . . .
Around October 2006, after more than 14 months of a long-distance relationship, Parmley became “debilitating[ly] sick” in Mississippi, she said.
Former Mississippi Democratic Party chairman Rickey Cole told TheDC that he and his wife took Parmley to the hospital “because he had lost a great deal of weight and couldn’t keep anything in his stomach.”
And then came Thanksgiving, when Burgin said she was hit with the news that would change her life forever.
“He had called my parents and asked them that they call me and have me come over,” Burgin said, “and that I needed to call him. And so I called him, and it was at that point that he told me the doctors had tested him for HIV. And that he was HIV positive. And that I needed to be tested.” . . .
Read the whole thing, a great story by Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller.
Notice that Parmley was employed at the top levels of the Democratic Party — as national director of Young Democrats, in Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina and North Carolina — for more than a dozen years before his sexual predations were publicly exposed.
Indeed, according to Burgin’s account, top Democratic officials knew Parmley was HIV-positive more than five years ago, which might have been seen as a huge clue that Parmley was up to no good.
Of course, such an interpretation — that AIDS infection might be evidence of dangerous proclivities — could be seen as “discrimination,” and Democrats consider discrimination a greater danger than an incurable sexually-transmitted disease. And remember that when Parmley was accused of sexually harassing a 26-year-old male aide, North Carolina Democratic Party officials tried to cover it up with a financial settlement, even though Parmley’s high-risk behavior had already victimized at least one other young person. Also remember, as Ed Morrissey says, to keep Rebecca Burgin in your prayers.
Fast and Furious Cover-Up: Who Told DOJ Employee Katie Dixon to Send Reporters Media Matters Story?
C.J. Ciaramella at the Free Beacon reports:
The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up.
In response to an inquiry from the Free Beacon, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in an email that she “was told to direct your questions to the FBI, and also to provide you with a link to this story: http://mediamatters.org/research/201204190011”
The link was to a story at the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America supposedly refuting many of Pavlich’s claims. Media Matters is a partisan organization whose founder, David Brock, is also running a pro-Obama super PAC.
The Justice employee who sent that message to Ciaramella was Katie Dixon, who works in DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs (DOJ-OPA). Notice that she says she “was told” to send reporters that Media Matters link. The question now: Who told her to do so?
And I’ll bet Rep. Darrell Issa will want to find out, too.
(Via Memeorandum, with more commentary at Breitbart, The Jawa Report, RedState and American Power.)
From Twitchy: Best. Sex. Scandal. Evah!
Folks, I am seriously enjoying Twitchy, the new Twitter-based news site that Michelle Malkin has created. But they need to work on their headlines, because this one is waaaay too understated:
PM Belden Namah accused
in casino sex scandal, gambling
Back in the day, I’d have demanded a re-write from the copy desk, because this is one super-awesome sex scandal:
SYDNEY’S Star casino has been rocked be fresh sexual harassment allegations involving the Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
The Deputy Prime Minister of PNG Belden Namah has been accused of sexually harassing a male blackjack dealer at the casino and behaving in a drunk and threatening manner, according to staff incident reports obtained by Fairfax Media.
According to the reports Mr Namah was allegedly gambling in the high roller room at around 7am on April 16 last year when he was asked to stop drinking due to “intoxication”.
A blackjack dealer then alleges Mr Namah started “teasing me by asking my mobile number” and then allegedly said to the man “Can I f… you tonight?”
This was followed up with “Can I love you, u (sic) are so pretty to me” and repeated requests for sex and to meet the man outside according to the dealer’s statement.
The staff statements from five separate employees say that despite the alleged sexual harassment the casino allowed Mr Namah back into the venue several hours later when it allegedly learnt he had paid $800,000 into a gambling account for use at the casino.
The per-capita Gross Domestic Product in Papua New Guinea? $2,416. So the deputy prime minister’s gambling account was equal to the combined annual income of 331 of his country’s citizens.
“Can I f– you tonight? . . . You are so pretty to me.”
Yeah, that’s Grade A primo sex-scandal stuff right there.
Voter ID, Eric Holder and the Increasingly Partisan Nature of ‘Civil Rights’
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, “civil rights” has become a code phrase for “whatever Democrats want,” so that anyone who disagrees with Democrats is said to be “anti-civil rights.” Case in point, the Texas voter ID law:
The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Why do Hispanic voters in Texas “lack state-issued identification”?
No drivers license? No passport? Nothing?
Is it cynical — or perhaps even racist — to suggest that many Hispanics in Texas don’t have ID because they are illegal immigrants and, as such, are not actually legal voters? Are Republicans just a bunch of xenophobic bigots for suspecting that Democrats oppose voter ID laws because they hope to use the votes of illegal aliens (or other methods of vote fraud) to elect Democrats?
Isn’t the Justice Department’s entire rationale for opposing the Texas voter ID law an extension of the belief that the partisan interests of the Democratic Party are coterminous with “civil rights”? Democrats actually believe they have the right to win elections, even by blatantly illegal means, and so any measure that might prevent ineligible people from voting is a violation of “civil rights.”
Now you know why “corrupt Democrat” is redundant: No honest person would ever get involved in the Democratic Party.
ADDENDUM: Doesn’t this show why “critical race theory” is relevant?
‘Resist We Much!’ MSNBC’s Bogus Populist Al Sharpton Living Large
Liberal scam artist is a member of the 1 percent:
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit paid him nearly $242,000 — even as it carried $1.6 million in debt, according to documents obtained by The Post.
In all, the controversial activist and his empire, including the National Action Network and two for-profit companies, were $5.3 million in the red, public records show.
Most of NAN’s money woes stemmed from more than $880,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes, interest and penalties. It also paid more than $100,000 to settle two lawsuits, byproducts of the unpaid bills.
And it still owed $206,252 in loans to Sharpton’s for-profit Bo-Spanky Consulting Inc. and Sharpton Media LLC, the records show.
“Bo-Spanky Consulting”? Hustling the “civil rights” racket can be a very lucrative gig. Always remember: Just because it’s “non-profit” doesn’t mean that people aren’t getting paid.
(Via Memeorandum, which has blog commentary by Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools and Gateway Pundit.)
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