NY Gov. Paterson raises $3.2 million for 2010 run
July 13, 2008
Associated Press
- Gov. David Paterson’s campaign committee says it has raised more than $3.2 million in just over two months.
Paterson’s gubernatorial campaign committee was formed on April 14 — less than a month after he was sworn in as governor — and started fundraising on May 5. The Harlem Democrat rose from the lieutenant governor’s office on March 17 after Eliot Spitzer resigned amid allegations that he was a client of a high-priced prostitution ring.
Paterson campaign spokesman Jonathan Rosen says most of the money was raised at small events over the past several weeks.
The campaign did not release details about the fundraising, saying a full accounting will be available from the state Board of Elections on Tuesday.
Dallas County officials spar over ‘black hole’ comment
July 10, 2008
Kevin Krause, Dallas Morning News
- A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.
County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.
Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”
Detroit mayor may face more charges
July 8, 2008
UPI
- Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may face new perjury charges related to alleged extramarital affairs, prosecutors said.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy reportedly plans to amend a criminal complaint add alleged incidents of infidelity by the mayor beyond his alleged affair with former chief of staff Christine Beatty, The Detroit News reported Tuesday.
“It will happen in the near future,” Worthy spokeswoman Maria Miller told the News. “It will include others. Other sexual/romantic relationships.”
The expansion of the case into other alleged Kilpatrick affairs is an attempt to bolster allegations by former police bodyguards that the mayor sometimes used them to facilitate extramarital trysts. A police whistle-blower lawsuit brought by two former officers claimed they were retaliated against for looking into allegations related to the misuse of Kilpatrick’s bodyguards for such purposes.
But Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor said prosecutors will have to directly link Kilpatrick to denials under oath of additional relationships.
“He’s not charged with having an affair, he’s charged with lying,” Henning said to the Detroit Free Press. “They’re going to have to identify the question and answer. They’re going to have to link it up with false statements he made.”
Detroit officials provide sickening fodder for racists
July 6, 2008
STEPHEN HENDERSON, Detroit Free Press
- A friend reminded me last week of one important tragedy emerging from the farcical collapse of responsible self-governance we’re witnessing in Detroit.
He did it with an old quote.
“One of the things that we have to give black people the time to learn to do is to learn how to run city governments. … Unfortunately, they’re still in an era of development, many of them, in which they think all you have to do is talk about this thing.”
That was Federal District Court Judge John Feikens, speaking way out of school in 1984 about the state of Detroit politics, after the first major scandal of the Coleman Young administration.
Feikens got ripped back then for taking an isolated instance of alleged corruption and mismanagement and using it as some kind of referendum on African-American managerial competence. It was a ridiculously racist comment.
Inmates’ Threat: No Segregation, No Peace
July 1, 2008
ALEX STONE, ABC News
- When an inmate who is not black enters Will Williams’ cell for the first time at San Quentin State Prison in Northern California, one of the last forms of legalized segregation will come to an end.
In a case that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, California’s prisons must begin racially integrating their cells this month. Integration goes against an unwritten code of conduct among San Quentin inmates, which says they must never communicate with other races.
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