Disqus - Latest Comments for ebrayton

Re: Emotional community addresses Haslett school board

ebrayton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:07:08 -0000

Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Rutkoswki. We have updated the original piece with the following editor's note at the mention of your name:

Editor's note: Although the police report contains conflicting testimony on who was in the room at any given time while the actual drunk shaming was occurring, Rutkowski says that he was not present at all while the incident took place, but was rather outside at the bonfire and only later did he go inside. His only role, he says, was driving Piechotte and Etheridge home because he felt it was unsafe for them to drive.

Re: Glenn Beck on Detroit: Today’s progressives are like yesterday’s slave owners

ebrayton — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:14:38 -0000

What cracks me up most about this is Beck's claim that slave owners were people who "encourage you to become dependent on them." Yes Glenn, that's the problem with slave owners. It's not that they owned human beings against their will, beat them mercilessly and killed them if they tried to escape - it's that they "encouraged" dependency.

Re: Haslett teacher reveals ‘drunk shaming’ by fellow employees

ebrayton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:34:37 -0000

We have deleted some comments for this story and have turned off any future comments due to a large volume of posts that contained needlessly inflammatory language and/or allegations that cannot be substantiated. All future comments that violate this policy on any other page will also be deleted. Thank you.

The comment box may still appear on the bottom of the page, but any comments left from this point on will not be published on the page.

Re: Haslett teacher reveals ‘drunk shaming’ by fellow employees

ebrayton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:00:39 -0000

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Re: Haslett teacher reveals ‘drunk shaming’ by fellow employees

ebrayton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:08:35 -0000

I'm not sure where you got this information that Piechotte tested negative for drugs. She admitted to using marijuana that night, both to the police and to us in an interview. I have the full police report and have seen nothing in there to suggest she tested negative for marijuana; even if she had, that would clearly impeach the validity of such a test because she fully admits to having used it.

Correction: Sorry, I did miss that part of the police report. Apparently the toxicology report did show a negative result for marijuana. But since she admitted to using it, I don't see why it matters that she tested negative. That calls the validity of the test into question but adds nothing to her defense (which she doesn't need anyway, for the reasons I pointed out).

That has nothing to do with culpability here, of course. Nearly everyone present that night smoked pot and drank to excess. None of that gives anyone any right to do what they did to the victim here.

Re: Underage drinking at Mackinac causes problems for GOP

ebrayton — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:32:18 -0000

chetly wrote:

Yeah, Ed, I can think of a reason.

Teenagers try to impress other teenagers. They occasionally tell "tall tales" - even on, or perhaps now especially on, blogs and facebook. Young men are reknowned for this - but society has evolved and even young woman get into it as well. I think the LCC and local police know that too, and when they don't have specific facts, as they don't here, their investigation, as the MIRS quote of Island police chief points out, is unlikely to result in anything. Everyone here talks of Oblinger's writing as gospel truth ... that's far from apparent.

You're beating up a straw man here, chetly. No one here claims that what she said is "gospel truth." What I said, and what remains true, is that she made a credible report of underage drinking. Credible - not indisputable, not inviolable, but credible. One can always come up with a hypothetical reason why someone might be lying, but that is a far cry from providing a compelling for believing that they are lying. If Oblinger made it all up to impress someone, she went to great lengths to do it - taking pictures of her friends at Mackinac Island during the conference, in campaign shirts, and pictures of them playing drinking games and falling down drunk on the lawn. And she even named names. That's not the hallmark of a hoax, chetly. Could it hypothetically be? Sure. Guess how you find out? Through an investigation.

Cut the bull-turd argument that I think "news" should avoid Republicans. My point was that the "journalism" here in this article lacked evidence for its claims, as does Brewer. You get evidence one of the candidates or campaigns did something active or negligent to encourage underage drinking, and I'll slam them hard. Publicly and behind the scenes. It's not there. Perhaps MM should have covered it - its certainly news in the sense that Brewer had a press conference. But that's it - so far.

And that's all we've reported. Again, you're attacking a strawman, pretending that we went off on some wild-assed accusation. In fact, we did exactly what an ethical journalism site does, we contacted each and every campaign that had underage people there and threw parties. The only one that called us back was Snyder's campaign. But we also got our hands on evidence that the Cox campaign had taken steps to avoid underage drinking and we reported that. We also went out of our way to point out that the campaigns that paid their way there could not be held responsible for what went on at the hotels, that a good portion of the story is nothing greater than "kids will be kids." But there is responsibility, I think, when you pay a bunch of underage kids to come to the conference, allow them in to parties that you paid for and arranged with an open bar and then don't take the proper precautions to prevent them from being served. We do not know which, if any, of the campaigns actually did this. That's why we didn't accuse any of them of doing it and that's why we made clear that at least one campaign had denied and another had taken positive steps to prevent it. If the other campaigns had returned our calls, we would have reported their positions as well.

The fact is that this is a perfectly reasonable article in both tone and substance. We didn't go off making wild accusations, we presented the evidence on both sides as it is known right now and we reported that an investigation has been called for. In response to that perfectly reasonable tone and substance, you went off like a partisan hack. Then you whine when you're responded to like a partisan hack. Don't want to be viewed that way? Stop acting that way.

Re: Underage drinking at Mackinac causes problems for GOP

ebrayton — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:11:00 -0000

Chetly wrote:

With all due respect, you don't have any evidence, other than the blog post ramblings of a self-proclaimed (we don't even have evidence this person was on the island, is a dem plant, etc.) CMU College Republican, of any underage drinking anywhere.

The Snyder campaign confirmed that Oblinger was there and that they paid for her trip, but they also say that she was turned away from their official party because of her age. Can you think of some reason why a member of the College Republicans there to stump for a Republican candidate would lie about what went on?

Also, it seems to me that if you think she might be lying, you would support an investigation that could document that to be the case.

Investigate? Go for it. It's a witch-hunt and distraction from the budget situation. I suppose all crime should be investigated, but prosecutors and police use some discretion with limited resources. It's the Governor's jurisdiction though (DNR/state police) so I'm sure the outcome will be unbiased.

The investigation will be done by the Liquor Control Commission and the local police. Since this is the kind of investigation that the LCC does every single day as part of their efforts to prevent underage drinking, why does it suddenly become a witch hunt when it involves Republicans? I bet you wouldn't be saying this if the same thing happened at a Democratic conference (and I have no doubt that it does, but since there is a credible report documenting it in this instance, the LCC has a legal obligation to investigate, don't they?).

Ah, "general complicity". You are reduced to this. OK. Sounds like "guilt by association", but I'll let you have this.

No, there may well be quite specific complicity here. That's what an investigation will reveal. Look, you live in a college town and you know damn well that the only even minimally effective way to keep underage kids from being served is for the wait staff and bartenders to card people when they order a drink (even that can be beaten, of course, but that will happen far more rarely than with an open bar and any kind of stamp at the door). If you stamp the underage ones, they can wash it off. If you stamp the overage ones, they can press their hands to the underage one's hands and rub it off. Anyone who's ever gone to college knows this.

Now, here you have a situation where the campaigns have brought a couple hundred kids to the island, many of them below the legal drinking age and then failed to set up the proper procedures to keep them from being served alcohol. On top of that, you've got those kids drinking alcohol at those official parties while they mingled with politicians, staffers and activists. Surely at some point, someone in a position of authority had to witness underage kids drinking and have chosen not to do anything about it. Again, this is what investigations are for. This is what the LCC does every single day in similar situations. You should be welcoming that.

Is Brewer trying to score political points with this? Of course he is. That's what Brewer does. It's also what the Republicans do every day and would be doing to the same degree if the tables were turned. But from a journalistic perspective, this is still news. You just seem to think that because it involves Republicans, no one should pay any attention to it. Of course, you're a Republican consultant so that's a rather convenient position to take.

Re: Council candidate Dearing caught fibbing

ebrayton — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:31:39 -0000

I think the punchline here is that even after being criticized or allowing his campaign manager to speak or him, Dearing then had his campaign manager deliver the apology too. How terribly sincere.

Re: Bernero challenger gives Lansing city attorney 2 weeks to have new FOIA rules

ebrayton — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:48:05 -0000

Mr. Sylvester, you are more than welcome to offer a substantive criticism of anything we write here at the Michigan Messenger. If you're just going to call names, you will not be commenting here anymore. I've deleted your comment.

Re: As city attorney stands his ground, new documents raise questions in Lansing sex sting case

ebrayton — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:39:34 -0000

You seem to be stuck in a false dichotomy, Joe. He could be both a public hazard AND a victim. Just like Rodney King could be both a felon and a victim of police brutality. The law is the law, regardless of your moral approval of the person whose rights are violated.

Re: As city attorney stands his ground, new documents raise questions in Lansing sex sting case

ebrayton — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:20:42 -0000

That's a rather odd response, Joe. We are a news outlet. Our job is not to lecture private citizens about their moral behavior, it is to be a watchdog on our public officials and their legal behavior. Whatever personal feelings anyone here might have about this man's actions, his legal rights were violated by someone in a position of power. This story is focused precisely where it ought to be.

Re: AP: Gitmo to UP prison transfer being seriously considered

ebrayton — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:56:39 -0000

We already imprison dozens of terrorists in the United States, including those who attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. Not one of them has ever escaped or even tried to. No one has ever even attempted to break them out. You don't escape from a supermax prison.

Re: Stupak denies knowledge of connections to mysterious ‘C Street’ house

ebrayton — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:55:02 -0000

Hillary is not a member, she's a "friend." The group is very conscious of distinguishing between members and friends (though there is no official membership roll, those within the group make a clear distinction). A member is someone who actually is assigned to a prayer group or "cell." A friend is someone who takes part in a prayer session or group meeting here or there but isn't really actively involved. They consider Hillary Clinton and Al Gore to be friends; Stupak, on the other hand, is a member, as is Ben Nelson.

Re: Stupak denies knowledge of connections to mysterious ‘C Street’ house

ebrayton — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:44:15 -0000

This is not a conventional religious right group. The group is about 80% Republicans and 20% Democrats. Stupak is hardly the only Democrat involved with them. Others include Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson. The Family is, quite intentionally, not tied to a political party the way groups like Focus on the Family or the Christian Coalition are. Their goals are much bigger and transcend party.

Re: Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

ebrayton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:41:28 -0000

Thank you for outing the voting patterns of my uncle (not me, because Ed is not my proper name). I honestly can't understand why you or anyone else has access to how anyone votes. A person's votes should be absolutely protected and private. They go to all that trouble at the polling places to protect such data, giving every person a privacy sleeve to make sure the person next to them can't see how they vote, then they hand that information over to others. In my opinion, that should be criminal. The notion that you have a database of voters and you have them "coded" based on their votes makes my skin crawl.

I do not teach construction, I am not married and I am nowhere near being "about the same age" as my uncle. And frankly, I don't think my "leanings" are any of your business except what I choose to reveal to you.

Re: Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

ebrayton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:25:24 -0000

Of course I vote.

Re: Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

ebrayton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:25:03 -0000

chetly wrote:

Ed, you have seriously misread the facebook data, I believe. I'm sure it's an accident, and hope you retract below, admitting the numbers favor the explanation I offer.

It appears you are correct. As I am not a friend to either of them on Facebook, I could not do a direct search and had to have someone else do it for me. I then misanalyzed the evidence in the picture. Mea culpa.

I also don't see you writing articles on the bad things said by Democrat precinct delegates - admit it, Ed, your publication choose what the issues and people it prefers to investigate.

Is there such a pattern to report on? I'm not aware of one. If you can show me a series of incidents involving Democratic precinct delegates and operatives around the country posting racist and bigoted things on new social media websites and causing national controversies for it in the last year, please do. I am not aware of any. Every single incident I reported was reported accurately. That is the only thing that matters to me.

Re: Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

ebrayton — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:32:31 -0000

Yes, I am well aware that lots of people have Facebook friends they don't know. I have hundreds on mine as well. It is clearly not necessarily true that merely having someone as a Facebook friend means they know them, or know them well. But it is one piece of possible evidence. And in this case, Dennis only has 17 friends on Facebook, as the picture shows, so that tends to undercut the reason you offer for doubt.

Re: Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

ebrayton — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:20:01 -0000

You know chetly, as I wrote this piece I predicted inside my head the lecture that would pour from your keyboard upon its publication. I could have written your comment for you word for word before you did, so predictable is the faux outrage. The irony is that the one painting with a broad brush here is you because you are so trapped into that false dichotomy where one can only criticize Republicans if they support Democrats. Thus you write:

Well, you clearly support (or lean to or avoid painting with the same brushes) the Party (Democratic) that spawned the Klu Klux Klan.

I neither support nor lean to the Democratic party. I have never voted for a Democrat in any election in my entire life.

As for Robert Byrd, I think that dottering old man is an embarrassment to both the Democratic party and West Virginia and I think they should have voted him out long ago (or better yet, never elected him in the first place). Of course, even without that, your argument is absurd. The element of the Democratic party a century ago that supported the KKK, the Dixiecrats like Strom Thurmond, all left the party for the Republicans decades ago. Does that mean that all Republicans are racist? Of course not. I have never made such a claim, nor would I ever make such a claim, nor have I ever even implied such a thing. It is only your imagination that reads such an implication into this article.

These are simple statements of fact, not one of which you actually attempt to challenge. Yes, there really is a pattern lately of young Republicans, and some old ones as well, getting into serious trouble using new social media to send out inflammatory and often racist messages. And yes, there really is a pattern of young Republicans in Michigan doing the same thing. Several of those incidents are noted, thus establishing the pattern.

Could one do the same thing with the Democrats? Of course they could, especially in Michigan. One might even cover a whole range of stories about corruption among Democrats in the Detroit city government, from the disgraced and convicted former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to the disgraced and convicted former chair of the city council Monica Conyers, wife of Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who may well get caught up in his wife's problems. Oh gee, this very news outlet has been covering that story as well. Why? Because it's true, regardless of which party is implicated. I don't recall your complaints that by covering those stories and presenting the facts about them we have somehow implicated all Democrats as corrupt.

The funny thing, Chetly, is that you are so blinded by partisanship that you falsely presume that everyone else is as well.

Re: Grebner files libel suit over Wikipedia edits

ebrayton — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:55:52 -0000

Chetly Zarko wrote:

Ed, thanks for the confirmation that Grebner is on a discovery fishing expedition - his motives then are clearly frivolous and abusive, even though an actual frivolous finding is as rare as you say and unlikely. "Free association" - the other half of the First Amendment - even if it were true that these folks were somehow loosely associated, so what? Using the legal process to unearth associations is McCarthyist. They were hardly engaged in racketeering or some grand conspiracy even in the best interpretation - it's interesting to you because it would give you some wild seed of an argument to paint whole organizations (I presume college Republicans, etc.) with?

Any evidence of connection beforehand? Probable cause so to speak justifying the Grebner fishing? You, as a reporter, could find it with a few google searches and other older investigative techniques.

I disagree with this (surprise, surprise). The fact is that litigation is used for discovery purposes all the time because you can get subpoenas that you can't otherwise get. And no, this is not merely about punishing anyone just for association. If, in fact, these three people did conspire to dishonestly defame a political enemy, that is both an interesting story for us and a legitimate legal and political issue for Grebner. As for whether there is evidence of such an association, stay tuned; I have a follow up planned, probably for tomorrow (but this is Thursday, so I am wrapped up most of the day with my radio show).

Frankly, I don't think Grebner is going to get what he wants. I think the cases against Lennox and Dennis are likely to be dismissed prior to discovery. But that's up to the court to decide and it is entirely proper that it does so.

As for whether you should sue other people for saying mean things about you, feel free. Those might make interesting stories too. And since I don't know any of the people involved in any of these controversies and have never voted for any of them or ever will, it's no skin off my nose either way.

Re: Grebner files libel suit over Wikipedia edits

ebrayton — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:32:25 -0000

I certainly agree with you that the strongest of the three charges is against Giammarinaro. If I was a betting man -- and I am -- I would wager that the allegations against Dennis Lennox and Bradley Dennis will be dismissed before the case goes to trial. But I would not go so far as to claim that those allegations are frivolous. As Bruce Sanford told me and I cited in the article, the question of whether calling someone a homosexual amounts to libel has a different answer from court to court. As for what Bradley Dennis said, I just don't know enough about Grebner's record (hell, I know virtually nothing about Grebner's record) to know whether one could make a plausible case that the claim was patently false or not. But the bar for calling a case frivolous is pretty high and the bar for sanctioning an attorney is even higher, so I doubt either of those is likely to happen.

As for why he lumped the three of them together, I think it's because he is convinced that their efforts were coordinated and that's the kind of thing that could well come out in discovery. Emails and phone records could be subject to subpoena and that might well reveal that this was planned together. Lennox told me he doesn't know the other two defendants at all, which I found rather surprising given the similar circles they run in. Should it turn out in discovery that they do know each other and their efforts were coordinated and tied to the organizations that they belong to, that's a much bigger story and I'm curious to see if that ends up being the case.

Re: Prayer booth at Warren city hall sparks questions

ebrayton — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:48:33 -0000

MarianoApologeticus wrote:

This, again, is the work of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) that was established in a country founded on the principle of freedom of religious expression.

You say this as though it were some sort of contradiction. It's not. Freedom of religion requires freedom from the imposition of someone else's religion. I'm not a big fan of FFRF but this is just a silly statement.

Allowing or encouraging prayer on government property does not violate the Constitution. Yet, groups such as the FFRF do not seem to know the difference between the Constitution’s Establishment Clause and what Thomas Jefferson wrote about in a letter about the “separation of church and state.”

You've oversimplified the truth here. Allowing or encouraging prayer on government property can violate the constitution but it doesn't necessarily do so. If Mayor Fouts is correct and the city has a policy allowing non-profit groups to lease such space free of charge then there likely is no violation here (because they would have established a limited public forum wherein all groups must be treated the same regardless of their viewpoint). If they do not have such a policy and the city decided specifically to allow this religious group to do so, that would likely be a violation (because the city government would have chosen specifically to endorse the religious message). That's why FFRF has requested copies of the city's official policies and a copy of the lease, because such details really do matter.

Who understood the Constitution better: the FFRF or Thomas Jefferson who, deist or not, attended Christian church services in the Capitol Building?

There are numerous fallacies in this single sentence. First, let me say that I've seen no evidence that FFRF understands the first amendment particularly well. They have often filed frivolous lawsuits they have no chance of winning on such issues. But that doesn't make the other claims here any more valid. Jefferson was not a deist, he was a theistic rationalist. And those "Christian church services" he attended on rare occasions at the capitol building were not really church services at all, they were large social gatherings for the Washington elite. They featured lectures, which were sometimes given by ministers and sometimes were entirely secular. But mostly they were just big parties, as they were described by those who attended them.

Lastly, the premise of this argument is false. As stated above, the law does not say that church services can never be held in government buildings. Churches all around the country lease government property to hold events, including Sunday services, and that is perfectly consistent with the establishment clause. But it's only consistent if the churches are allowed to rent such facilities on an equal basis with other non-governmental groups, not if the government specifically chooses to allow only a church to hold such services. That's when it crosses the line and becomes a government endorsement of religion.

Re: Judge denies injunction in Christian Arab group lawsuit

ebrayton — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:20:42 -0000

Actually, they probably are doing it pro bono. That's the way they typically operate, as do most public interest law firms. The attorney in the case is claiming in the press now that other groups, including other Christian groups, are allowed to wander around and hand out literature. But the ruling pretty clearly suggests otherwise.

Re: Opinions on same-sex marriage shifting in Michigan

ebrayton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:15:46 -0000

Again you cite a single poll. And again, you reply to an argument I did not make. I specifically noted the support for gay marriage and civil unions combined. When you just ask whether they support gay marriage or not gay marriage, the polls typically show 55-60% say no gay marriage, 40% says yes. But if you ask the question slightly differently and add in the possibility of granting all of the rights of marriage without actually calling it that, support jumps significantly, up to between 60 and 70% on average. Your position, that same-sex relationships should get no legal recognition from the government at all, is a small minority now. And this has changed enormously over the last 5 years.

Of course you're not going to run up the white flag on this issue. But frankly, I think the strident reaction from your segment of the world is made all the more inflated precisely because you do realize, on some level, that you've already lost. The official sanction of anti-gay bigotry is undergoing its death rattles at the moment, just as 40 years ago the official sanction of anti-black bigotry did so. The patterns are identical; the outcome will be too. By 2012, anti-gay marriage referendums will actually hurt the Republican party around the country. Within one generation, you and your fellow bigots will be viewed the same way we view those who fought against civil rights for blacks today (and yes, that includes black bigots like Ken Hutcherson, Alan Keyes and Ken Blackwell).

Re: Opinions on same-sex marriage shifting in Michigan

ebrayton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:19:04 -0000

That's possible, of course, and it would be convenient for your position, but it's not very likely. You cited one poll from 2004 that was wrong; that is the danger of looking at a single poll. But the trend in all of the polls, both in Michigan and around the nation, is quite clear. Support for gay marriage has gone up remarkably, opposition to it has gone down remarkably, and support for some form of legal recognition for same-sex relationships is now the majority position by a sizable margin. I know you don't want that to be true but it is. Whether you want to realize it or not, the nation is changing and your favored form of bigotry is on the way out. In 20 years, we will look back on this era and wonder what on earth was the big deal, just as we now look back on the controversy over interracial marriage and can't imagine why anyone ever opposed it. Your side has already lost. The young people today do not share your prejudice against gay people and the older voters who do are dying off. You've already lost, you just can't admit that.