A day after Mayor Sheila Dixon's defense team signaled it would be trashing developer Ronald Lipscomb, the one-time paramour who will testify that he gave her gift cards for the needy that she spent herself, Not-Ronald-Lipscomb appeared on the witness stand.
His real name is Edward Anthony, but his testimony Friday seemed designed to portray him as good boyfriend to Lipscomb's bad boyfriend.
Anthony is still dating the mayor, for one thing, while Lipscomb has gone back to his wife. When Anthony gives her presents, they aren't bought by underlings and delivered anonymously but in person, so he can steal a moment with the busy Dixon. And while Lipscomb received tax breaks for multimillion-dollar development projects while dating her, Anthony testified that what he wants from Dixon is ... a hug.
An official with the city's housing department, Anthony was called as a witness for the prosecution because he is one of her intimates who somehow ended up with a gift card that developers had donated to Dixon, purportedly to be given to the city's needy.
Incidentally, you have to wonder what it was like for Anthony to learn that he had used a gift card that had been given to his current girlfriend by her former boyfriend - and that he would be called to testify about it.
Awkward!
Maybe, but as it turns out, Anthony wasn't much help to the prosecution. While prosecutors produced receipts showing that he had used a Giant gift card that had been purchased by a Lipscomb employee and given to Dixon, Anthony testified he didn't remember how the card came into his hands - only that the mayor didn't give it to him.
Defense lawyer Melissa Phinn, sitting next to Dixon, took over the questioning and managed to steal the prosecutors' witness right in front of them - not to mention providing a platform for Anthony to score major boyfriend points along the way.
He talked about how hard Dixon worked, both for the city and as a mother to her two children. How they communicated mainly by phone because she was so busy. How he took every opportunity to call during breaks at work because saying hello "feels good."
"Our relationship is very challenging. You have to love and respect a person to stay in a relationship the way I have," he said.
What all this has to do with the charges at hand is beyond me. But with prosecutors remaining silent and not objecting to this divergence, Anthony blew more verbal kisses toward the defense table.
The subject, as it tends to do in this trial, turned to gifts given to Dixon.
Do you have them sent to City Hall, or take them there yourself, Phinn asked, as if she didn't know. "I would deliver it myself ... for a couple reasons," Anthony said. "First, I would want to see her," he added, and take "the opportunity to get a hug."
And secondly, Anthony said, it was a way of making sure she got and kept the present because sometimes, "out of the goodness of her heart," she would give it to someone else.
I couldn't tell if the jurors were silently going "awwwww" or "ewwwww."
It was just one day after the defense used its opening statement to portray Lipscomb as a lying, near-stalker of the mayor - "What Ms. Dixon didn't know at the time was there was a very deceptive, untrustworthy side to Mr. Lipscomb," Arnold Weiner said ominously.
Lipscomb has yet to testify, and yet he hovers over proceedings. Weiner even put a picture of the developer on the exhibits screen at one point Friday while Lipscomb's aide Randell Finney was testifying.
And, just like a good episode of "Law & Order," where the plot takes a tantalizing twist right before a commercial break, Weiner hinted in his last round of questions before a morning recess Friday that there was more dirt on Lipscomb to come. Noting that Finney said he had once cashed a $4,400 check to wire money to his boss in Seattle on a business trip, Weiner slyly asked if it wasn't true that "Mr. Lipscomb also had personal business in Seattle?"
While Finney said he wouldn't know about that, the way love and money have been intertwined in this trial, surely someone at some point will.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
saccharine sweet and so fake i had to go puke half way through...
anyone playing 'Name That Party'?
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/15/2009 1:06 Comments ||
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Seems the Mayor of Detroit doesn't want to withhold union dues from city employee paychecks figuring if the unions want their money, they can collect it directly from the members.
David Bing is in a weeks-long feud with AFSCME Local 25, the largest union in the city, over ways to cut a $300 million city budget deficit. The union will not agree to a 10% wage cut and the contract has expired. The union withdrew support from Bing in last week's general election.
A court order was issued to compel Bing to withhold the dues from city paychecks but he has refused.
#1
Seems the Mayor of Detroit doesn't want to withhold union dues from city employee paychecks figuring if the unions want their money, they can collect it directly from the members.
Something we can agree on. There should be no 'public' employees unions. The state is sovereign, representing the whole, and therefore can not negotiate or recognize an entity like a union which is not sovereign and represents a fraction of the whole. Either you take the work, or find work else where. People are entitled to free assembly. As such they may freely donate to causes they support and believe in. They are not entitled to ask the state to withhold money earned for labor executed. They may freely collect it on their own time and own dime short of racketeering.
#2
The union knows that if Mayor Bing gets away with this, other cities desperately trying to rustle up every possible dime will jump on it.
Extra butter on my popcorn, please.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/15/2009 11:19 Comments ||
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#3
Could be the ultimate red on red...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/15/2009 11:34 Comments ||
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#4
Definitely a popcorn-worthy event. Bing (famous ex-Pistons basketball star) is a businessman which means he has some understanding of financial matters, doesn't appear to be corrupt and is not a race-baiter. This sets him apart from most Detroit mayors for the last half a century or so.
The public employees unions in Michigan are insanely powerful and can usually get judges to bend to their will. (all those members mean lots of votes. do you want them with you or against you next election?) Should be an interesting war. I wish him luck.
#5
just like the Feds and State Revenooers. Withholding makes it seem like not such a big cost. If you had no withholding and had to pay your taxes (or union dues) in a lump sum once a year, the sheep might get.... riled
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 12:02 Comments ||
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#6
Something we can agree on. There should be no 'public' employees unions.
Unions have their purpose. People have the same rights as any other entity to organize and combine in their own economic interests.
What would be an improvement is to ban public sector unions from lobbying, period. Unions have the power of the strike and they have political power.
Granting them the privilege to lobby for legislation that directly benefits them is corruption defined.
#7
I'll reiterate. There can be no political or negotiating equality between that entity representing the people as a whole and that which represents a subset of those same people.
People have the same rights as any other entity to organize and combine in their own economic interests.
Not against the People as a whole. Most transitions to military rule though history occurred when that subset organized and combined in their own economic interests. The principle stands, either work for the state [the people], under its conditions or quit.
But the people aren't as a whole. They are as a whole still people, still all too willing to do the wrong things to charges without union protection.
Where does a female worker, for example, go under a non-union environment when a boss tells her to blow him on Fridays or lose her job?
The courts? Sure, take ten years and sue and maybe win. People need protections only a union environment can provide. The courts are abysmally poor arbiters of workplace fairness.
I got a snootful of real life, real live proof for you going back 20 years.
Most transitions to military rule though history occurred when that subset organized and combined in their own economic interests.
I noticed you didn't accuse unions of fomenting coup d'tats. Very subtle to mention a subset in the same response as unions. Very crafty.
And irrelevant.
The principle stands, either work for the state [the people], under its conditions or quit.
The principle stands under a narrow, not broad set of circumstances. You try to apply an overbroad and vague contention that groups of people are potentially evil, that they may foment a coup because groups of people combine to protect their interests.
The difference is that coups are normally fomented by groups of people organizing in their economic interests who also happen to have heavy weapons and a butt load of razors to act on their behalf.
#9
"Public Unions" are an oxymoron, heavy on the "moron". Government employees serve at the will of the people, expressed in the form of representative democracy. They have NO "right" to a job, nor any "right" to any special provisions, just for them. California's biggest problem at the moment is the inability to trim staff, due to an over-reaching group of unions. There need to be rules governing employees to keep the "next" government from firing them all, from coercion of any kind, and a means to "blow the whistle" on any supervisory infringement of basic rights, but a union is totally inappropriate.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2009 15:10 Comments ||
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#10
People need protections from tyrants, large and small.
For the body politic, we have the US Constitution to protect us from the big tyrants.
For the little tyrants in the workplace, we have unions.
#13
A government employee union that donates more than 60% of its contributions or bundled contributions to one political party should lose its tax exempt status. There should be no advantage to a party to expand government only to have that expansion result in an increase in cash to the party.
In fact, I would propose NO political activity at all for government employee unions. Individuals would be free to do as they wish but the union could not donate or bundle for any candidate.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/15/2009 17:46 Comments ||
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#16
Personally I think Unions, ALL Unions should be banned from any sort of political activity. No contrbutions, no phone banks, no 'in-kind' contributions, nothing. nada. Zero. And any union caught in the political process should be immediately disbanned and its leaders jailed.
But then I think those on the unearned government teat should forfit their voting rights too....
Unions should not be able to vote themselves political power and people should not be able to vote themselves more benefits.
#17
Where does a female worker, for example, go under a non-union environment when a boss tells her to blow him on Fridays or lose her job?
Oh please Badanov. There are any number of ways that an employee can deal with sexual harassment, especially in a government setting. These issues are dealt with in non-unionized businesses every day.
Non-union government employees are protected to an extreme degree. Government unions don't add to their protections, only to the taxpayers costs.
#18
as a civil servant (Senior Civil /Bridge-Engineer) I'd like to correct a few notions. I work in a closed shop by certification from our City Council (not my choice). I am not required to contribute to the Union PAC, and I don't. We are NOT free to strike, and the majority of the membership (as I understand it) would NOT violate that. I know I wouldn't (scab central). We have good retirement plans to balance our salary, which, pre-recession was $40K+ under for similar jobs. Now that private is sucking, my salary/bennies are "obscene"? Bite me. I'm no union guy (don't pay the PAC add-on), but signed on for what I was offered at each contract time. I'd happily debate any and all off Fred's time
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 20:39 Comments ||
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#19
"I am not required to contribute to the Union PAC, and I don't"
Unions do not donate only from their PAC. For example, most (but not al) government employee unions are SEIU affiliates. A portion of dues goes to the national. The national makes political contributions to Democrats pretty much exclusively. The local could even make political donations or donate to its own PAC from dues.
The American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees is #2 on the all time largest political donor list (ahead of even Goldman Sachs) with 1% of their donations going to Republicans.
The SEIU is the 9th largest all time political donor with 97% to Democrats and 3% to Republicans. The IBEW is the 5th largest all time donor with only 2% going to Republicans. The CWA (union of electronic media journalists) is 12th with 0% going to Republicans.
Compare that with corporate donations. AT&T 44% Dem 55% Rep, National Association of Realtors 48% Dem, 51% Rep.
Government employee labor unions should be banned from political activities. The people should be able to engage in them, but the union should not be, particularly in closed shops where dues are mandatory.
#21
There are any number of ways that an employee can deal with sexual harassment, especially in a government setting.
Good one, remoteman. I assume you never were a civilian employee in a law enforcement agency, where the harasser has a brass badge?
Been there, done that....it IS different in that situation, and trust me, I was thankful for my oh-so-unnecessary public union then.
As an aside to Frank G, hate to say it but you are wasting your breath. I wouldn't presume to know 1/10 about their jobs as they think they knew about mine....I know exactly what you are talking about. I was in the same kind of work situation, different city.
#22
I feel unions serve a purpose. They just should limit their activity to the workplace and not politics. They currently give Democrats a very real financial incentive to expand government. Every additional government employee translates to more cash in their pocket. THAT is what I am against.
Government workers unions should be banned from political activity. That's all I am saying.
Officials in New York have not yet certified Bill Owens (D) the winner of the Nov. 3 special congressional election, saying Thursday that a recounting of the vote shows him with a smaller lead than first reported.
The New York Board of Elections plans to count more than 10,000 absentee ballots before certifying a winner. Owens's lead over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman has tightened from about 5,300 votes on election night to about 3,000, but officials in both parties said Thursday that the Democrat is almost certain to remain the winner in the race.
Owens was sworn into office last Friday and, a day later, cast a critical vote that helped the health-care bill pass the House.
In seating Hoffman, congressional Democrats noted that, while no official certificate of election had been sent by New York officials, the race had not been contested. Republicans did not object then and have not since.
"Doug Hoffman conceded, knowing that there was no way he could take the lead in the final tally, and that's exactly why the election results were not contested," said Jennifer Crider, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
An official for the Hoffman campaign would not publicly comment Thursday on whether the candidate would now contest the election result.
Officials in New York cited tabulation errors for the inaccurate initial margin. A routine vote recanvass showed more votes for Hoffman among the more than 136,000 that were cast.
A spokesman for the New York Board of Elections said certification of the election probably will not occur until next month.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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The Danville TEA Party plans a "Fired Up For Freedom" rally Nov. 21, which will end in burning Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy, according to a news release from organizer Nigel Coleman.
The news release had an original embargo of Nov. 20, meaning the media couldn't report it until that date. However, another news organization broke the embargo Friday afternoon by posting the story online.
The rally will be held at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 21 at 5927 U.S. 29 in Blairs. The event is open to the public.
"We were outraged to find that Tom Perriello had voted in favor of this bill. I was with dozens of 5th District voters in his office two days before the vote and we pleaded with him to stand with us against the Pelosi plan," Coleman, Danville TEA Party chairman, said.
TEA Party Patriots is a national, nonprofit group that promotes fiscal responsibility, limited government and free market principles, according to the release. Local TEA Party groups like Danville's are autonomous and separate from the national organization.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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how provincial... thinking you representative should actually represent you...
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/15/2009 1:09 Comments ||
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...well they're just waking up to the fact that representative government is of special interest groups, by special interests groups, for special interest groups, not about the serfs people.
#3
Still, the effigy stuff is bad nonsense. This movement will die if it insists on descending into the sewer where the lefty nuts have always resided...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/15/2009 11:38 Comments ||
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Correct-o-mundo M. Murcek.
The images of the burning "stuff" will be all over the MSM without any mention of the underlying issues.
This will cause the movement, and associated credibility, a lot of harm.
Utah has emerged as an improbable battleground in the fight for the future of the GOP, as the party's veteran U.S. senator -- with nary a whiff of personal or political scandal -- has become one of the most threatened lawmakers up for reelection next year.
Robert F. Bennett is no Northeast liberal. Raised in Salt Lake City, he built a business, manufacturing day-planners, that made him wealthy. His grandfather was a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father served four Senate terms -- meaning that, combined with Bennett's own three terms, father and son have held the seat for the better part of 60 years.
Yet those very attributes -- longevity, seniority -- only compound the challenge facing Bennett, who, like other Republicans across the country, faces attack within the party from those who find him insufficiently conservative.
As last week's elections showed, the 2010 campaign is shaping up as another driven by a deep, throbbing anger against the political establishment. President Obama has been a prime target at rowdy town hall meetings and "tea party" protests, and Democrats certainly have much to fear, as they hold the majority in Congress. But the free-floating hostility may pose a danger to members of both parties.
"This is not a Democrat problem. It's not a Republican problem. It's an incumbent problem," said Cherilyn Eagar, one of three Republicans, so far, taking on Bennett. "It's on both sides of the aisle."
A national poll issued this week reflected that sentiment. Only about half of the registered voters interviewed, 52%, said they would like to see their representative reelected next year, among the most negative findings in two decades of Pew Research surveys.
Eagar and others, boosted by the conservative Club for Growth, cite Bennett's extended time in Washington and criticize his willingness to work with Democrats on issues such as healthcare reform and the Wall Street rescue approved amid last year's financial crisis.
"People are fed up with the way Washington has historically conducted its business: horse-trading and giving this to get that," said Tim Bridgewater, another Republican running for Bennett's seat.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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MSM sure does love those RINOs.
Personally, anyone trying to turn ObamaCare into law is a fair target. Bennett painted the target on his own forehead.
Sen. Joe Lieberman was the Democrats' persona non grata last fall. Having spent most of the year stumping for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, he was on the brink of losing his prized chairmanship of an important Senate committee, and he was on the receiving end of some nasty insults from the soon-to-be Obama White House.
One year later, Lieberman is still unwelcome in the liberal wing of the Democratic party, but his status in the Senate is no longer in question. Joe matters.
The Connecticut senator has emerged as the most vocal critic in the Democratic caucus against a government-run insurance plan, pledging to join a Republican filibuster against health care reform "as a matter of conscience" if the public option is in the bill.
And after the shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is poised to lead a congressional investigation into what led to the attack and whether the military and intelligence communities missed "warning signs."
On top of this, the Independent Democrat has embraced the "I" after his name, working at times with fellow Democrats but also hopping across the aisle without hesitation to put pressure on the Obama administration.
In the past few months alone, Lieberman has urged Attorney General Eric Holder not to open an investigation of the intelligence community's interrogation practices; chided President Obama for canceling a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe; and repeatedly joined Republicans in pressing the president to approve a troop increase for Afghanistan.
On Friday, Lieberman ripped the Obama administration's decision to prosecute the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his accomplices in New York instead of the military commissions.
Timothy Profeta, who used to work as Lieberman's counsel on environmental issues, said Lieberman has emerged once again as an influential moderate.
"There was a lot of raw emotion in '06 and '08 but that seems to have passed at least among the senators themselves," said Profeta, now director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. "He's been able to reassume his role as a bridge between the parties on key issues, and perhaps even strengthen."
While his partisan transgressions have earned him the scorn of liberal commentators and some lawmakers, Lieberman continues to have the public backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"I have the greatest confidence in Joe Lieberman's ability as a legislator," Reid said late last month after Lieberman threatened to join a filibuster against health care reform. Reid called Lieberman "my friend," and the one he respects more than any senator.
"Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems," Reid said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Problem is he isn't actually a Democrat any more... not officially anyway
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/15/2009 1:10 Comments ||
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View and marvel at the rare and nearly extinct classical liberal. The original habitat of the classical mid 20th Century liberal has been successfully occupied by the 20th Century socia!ist, who observers incorrectly label with the name of the first species out of PC.
ARLINGTON, VA (Rantburg News Service) Matthew Berry today criticized Congressman Jim Moran's offensive comment that those opposed to the Obama Administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, and four co-conspirators in a civilian New York City court are "un-American".
"It is wrong," Berry stated, "for Congressman Moran to question the patriotism of the millions of Americans who believe that terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried by military commissions rather than in civilian courtrooms."
"Furthermore," Berry continued, "Congressman Moran's comment reflects a basic ignorance of American history. Military commissions were used to try war crimes during the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War II."
"Therefore," Berry concluded, "the use of a military commission to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would have been entirely in keeping with American history and tradition."
On Tuesday, Berry announced the formation of an exploratory committee as the first step to running for the Republican nomination in Virginia's 8th District, the seat currently held by Congressman Moran.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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He ain't called Jim Moron for nothing....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/15/2009 0:02 Comments ||
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President Obama's Succor For Dictators World Tour continues.
President Barack Obama and his Southeast Asian counterparts are expected to drop a call for Myanmar's ruling generals to release political prisoners, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ahead of elections next year.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2009 08:21 ||
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And who thinks the bottom is getting any nearer?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/15/2009 11:32 Comments ||
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I guess our banker asked Obama for a favor for a friend.
#1
There was still slavery in Mexico during the reign of Porfirio Diaz, and one revolutionary who had been educated in the US, made a very memorable observation, when he angrily chastised peons who bowed to him, to the effect of:
"Don't you dare bow to me, ever! Those that bow before the powerful, will demand that others bow before them when they are powerful!"
#2
A possible explanation for why President Obama bowed to the Emperor: He drew fire for bowing to the Saudi King, as some people took it to signify a display of deep respect. Bowing to the Japanese Emperor may ironically be meant to signal: "Hey, this bowing stuff doesn't mean anything. Its just a formal ritual, that signifies nothing. Its Mikado and King and I comic opera stuff, for show. No deep symbolism" If he had only bowed before the Saudi King, that would be a different matter. But he went out of his way to bow extra deeply to the genial and insignificant Japanese Emperor, as if to subtly mock the entire business of bowing. At the same time, he knows that his Muslim audience still sees the original bow to the Saudi king as a display of extra respect to Muslims.
Posted by: Dan ||
11/15/2009 8:08 Comments ||
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Just keep a list of who he bows to and who holds or could potentially hold large amounts of Treasury Bills. Then it starts to make sense when you're going to run astronomical deficits.
#7
This American did a lot of bowing when he lived in Japan, but I'd never dip more than 15 degrees or so. It's not really that difficult to respect the customs of other people while maintaining a modicum of dignity for yourself.
#13
Isn't this a breach of US diplomatic protocol? IIUC, any US diplomat who bowed to a foreign monarch would be disciplined for such a breach. WTF is POTUS doing here?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A day after Mayor Sheila Dixon's defense team signaled it would be trashing developer Ronald Lipscomb, the one-time paramour who will testify that he gave her gift cards for the needy that she spent herself, Not-Ronald-Lipscomb appeared on the witness stand.
Officials in New York have not yet certified Bill Owens (D) the winner of the Nov. 3 special congressional election, saying Thursday that a recounting of the vote shows him with a smaller lead than first reported. 
Utah has emerged as an improbable battleground in the fight for the future of the GOP, as the party's veteran U.S. senator -- with nary a whiff of personal or political scandal -- has become one of the most threatened lawmakers up for reelection next year.
Sen. Joe Lieberman was the Democrats' persona non grata last fall. Having spent most of the year stumping for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, he was on the brink of losing his prized chairmanship of an important Senate committee, and he was on the receiving end of some nasty insults from the soon-to-be Obama White House. 
