Doctors in the Senate = Better Soundbites

After last night's election, I am adding a shiny new quote to the "Freedom Quotes" section (right sidebar) of this blog:

America is exceptional, but it is not inherently so.

That subtle, insightful, and powerfully-true observation comes courtesy of Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky).

No mountains, no plains, no hymn, no eagle, no star-spangled banner makes us great.  Only the carefully-crafted protections of the Constitution and the perpetual fight to maintain freedom as our highest ideal keeps us the most prosperous nation in history.  Here's hoping Paul & Co. have the necessary verve to escalate that fight in Congress.

I've Got Google™, a Cell Phone, and Confirmation Bias. What More Does a Journalist Need?

[UPDATE added below]

I have potentially devastating -- for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway -- information in my possession, and I did everything possible to corroborate it. But I failed, and instead what I have is a rumor. So, sadly, rather than this post being about the facts of a major national development, it is a journal of my unsuccessful attempt to fit together pieces of gossip into a certifiable account of events. Once again, I must be clear that none of this information has been confirmed by a second source or by documentation. I encourage skepticism.

Last week, a trusted source intimated to me that Ky Attorney General Jack Conway had deliberately impeded a police investigation into Conway's own brother by exposing an undercover police informant. My source's details were thus:

Louisville (Ky) Metro Police were using an informant to gather information on Conway's brother, who is suspected to be involved in illegal narcotics. In June or July of 2010, LMPD Detective Roy Irons* placed an unsanctioned call to Attorney General Conway's office to alert Conway to the investigation, and Irons specifically communicated that one of Conway's brother's associates was a police informant. Conway then called and warned his brother. The informant later complained to LMPD that someone had tipped Conway off, and an internal investigation was opened. Detective Irons was moved to the LMPD Property Room pending the investigation, but the investigation itself was to be shelved until after the November 2010 US Senate election.

The first phonecall of my own investigation was to the LMPD Property Room. I called on a Saturday and when a woman answered "Hello, Property Room" I replied, "I am trying to reach Detective Roy Irons. Do I have the right number?" The woman answered, "Yes, but he's not in today. He should be here Monday." With that, I thought I was actually on to something, since under normal circumstances, a detective would not be assigned to work the Property Room.

But shortly thereafter, my Woodward and Bernstein days were over. Calls to the LMPD Public and Media Relations Department and to Internal Affairs were met with a professional stonewall, and I discovered that LMPD is not under any public obligation to acknowledge an internal investigation even exists until that investigation is concluded, which in this case is part of the issue. An investigation that began in July should have been over long ago.

My next step was to try and co-opt an actual working journalist. I chose to contact a writer with the Louisville Courier-Journal who had an impressive history of investigative pieces on the LMPD. That writer indicated that not all of my information was entirely new, but without a primary source or physical evidence, the story was doomed to the "interesting rumor" file. He tried his best to arrange talks directly with my original source, but that individual declined to escalate his/her involvement for myriad reasons. I can only assume the Courier-Journal is also chasing the story on some level.

Two corroborating documents exist, but my efforts to access them were also dismal failures. One is an obligatory letter from a high-ranking LMPD officer -- most likely Chief Robert White -- informing Det. Irons that he is being investigated. This letter would not include any details of the investigation and would certainly not implicate the Attorney General's office, but it would lend credence. The second document would be an official transfer report showing that Det. Irons had been re-assigned to the Property Room. It also would not detail the investigation. If any part of this story is true, both of these documents would be carefully protected.

Ultimately, there are only three people who could truly confirm the juiciest bit of the allegations involving a justice-obstructing phonecall that put a police informant at risk: Attorney General Conway, his brother, or Det. Irons. An official internal investigation may eventually deduce the truth, but if such an investigation even exists, it is unlikely to be concluded before Election Day.  Motivations to procrastinate abound.


*Pending additional evidence, this name has been changed to protect the innocent.

UPDATE: Looks like the Courier-Journal was hot on the trail after all. The important part:

Jack Conway’s office said in an e-mail to the newspaper Thursday that his only involvement was to advise his brother to obtain legal counsel.

...

Although he was asked to discuss his knowledge of the investigation involving his brother and the meeting with Adams, Jack Conway’s statement did not address either issue.

When the newspaper renewed its request for elaboration, Allison Gardner Martin, communications director for the attorney general’s office, said Conway “does not deny” that Adams met with him and his brother. But she declined to address what Conway knew about the decision to have Adams visit White.

Cleaning House... Or at Least Cleaning a Spot On One Rug Near the Guest Bedroom

The angry electorate has roared! The nation is gripped by an anti-incumbent furor! It's open-season on the bums!

So whaddaya think - will 40% of incumbents go down in November? 50%? 75%? Hold onto your hats, folks - 2010 will be the biggest shakeup in Washington since the Reagan Revolution of 1980 if we replace... 26% of Senators and 13% of House members seeking reelection. And don't forget that only about a third of the Senate is up for reelection in any election year; we're really getting revolutionary if we toss 9 whole Senators this year (for hardcore math types, that's 100 Senators / 3 * 26%, rounded up to the next whole powerhungry slug).

Count me among libertarians strongly in favor of a Constitutional amendment implementing term limits on Congresscritters.* Because we collectively make terrible exterminators.


*For those interested, yes, this statement is consistent with libertarian views. Libertarian != anarchist. I believe there is a short list of proper functions of a government, most of which can be summed up by its role as enforcer of nonagression. If it must exist, it must have structure (to bind it); term limits give structure just like the seperation of powers and the bicameral Congress.

Changing Hearts and Losing My Mind, Volume 2

[Catch up with Volume 1 here.]

Election finance is a minefield. My campaign fund-raising sources consisted entirely of people who had once tussled my hair and/or used their thumb to wipe chocolate from my face, and I still narrowly escaped a $5000 fine for late paperwork -- the third consecutive required pre-primary finance report showing that I still had an operating budget of $0 for the primary election in which I had no opponent.

So I welcomed the navigational assistance of a sitting City Councilman, even after it became abundantly clear that he was certifiably insane.

Changing Hearts and Losing My Mind, Volume 1

Years ago, I ran for City Council in my hometown. There was no primary challenger, so had I won the election, I would have represented roughly 35,000 constituents. [SPOILER ALERT] I lost. But before the last of the dimpled chads had even been scrutinized, thousands upon thousands of you began filling my inbox, begging me to recount my tales from the campaign trail.^{[citation needed]}

That din of adulation can no longer be ignored.

With an operating budget that would dwarf the average garage sale, my most effective commodity was shoe-leather, which is unfortunate because I am naturally very lazy. Plus, I don't particularly like people. One example why:

On a sunny Wednesday evening in October, I eked a hesitating path toward a beige-ish one-story on a dead-end street -- one more of a hundred houses I'd approached since five o'clock. An elaborate zigzag of a homemade redwood wheelchair ramp consumed the grassless front yard on its way to an unhinged aluminum screen door, and the roof over the front stoop sloped under the weight of a large dead tree limb that certainly hadn't dropped there recently. Standing there in the yard, propped against one corner of the ramp, a messy-looking fellow dragged deeply from a filterless cigarette, then stared daggers into me as he exhaled through his nose like an angry cartoon bull.

"Evenin'," I said, in my most condescending faux-folksy drawl.

Smoking Bull tugged his lips in over his dentureless gums, then spit heartily onto his own shoe. "Shit," he said, before scraping at the spot with the sole of his other foot. The shift in weight distribution wrecked his entire world, evidently, since he immediately flailed his arms and grabbed at the railing to keep from falling backward. By the time he'd re-situated and located my face again, I had a pretty good idea of just how drunk he was.

"I'm running for the City Council this year," I plowed on despite the fact that his entire head had acquired a slow sway, and one eyebrow seemed to be stuck in the 'surprised' position, "and I'd like to know if you've decided who you're going to vote for." (Insert thousand-watt insincere smile here.)

"She's a sonuvabitch...," Bull managed. Despite the odd gender confusion, I assumed he was talking about the incumbent, which was promising for me. "She voted for the... the smoking bans."

"That's true. Now if I'm elected, one of the things I'd like to--"

"She passed the smoking bans and we didn't get trash picked up like... like she promised." Bull drew his sleeve mightily across his nose, then gestured with his cigarette. At this point I could no longer determine if he knew I was still there. "Branches from... branches from the... sat out on the curb for a month."

"You mean after the big storm last summer?" I asked, but I might as well have invited the wheelchair ramp to prom. Bull -- more Wild Turkey than man -- was having a conversation to which no other human being had been invited.

"And I called... Mom called and all she... She didn't even return the call." After two or three attempts, Bull's cigarette found his lips. Drawing again, his limbs seemed to settle a bit around him as each toxin fought for dominance.

I sensed my opportunity, and pounced. "So then I guess I can count on your vote in November?" (And yes, the question feels just as desperate the thousandth time as it did the first.)

Bull seemed to notice me again. Then, somewhere in his mind, swizzled as it was with sour mash and nicotine, he dug deep and drew upon a faith more stalwart than any religion: party loyalty.

"I'm voting for her... same as I did the last two times," he told me. "She's the Democrat."

And that was that.