Kirk Dillard is one of a handful making a bid for the governor’s office. He’s a classic RINO, a man who decided to sell his soul and his voters in exchange for political relevancy during the 2008 election by way of joining the peanut gallery in lathering on praise for Obama.

Dillard took his adoration for a man who voted against allowing citizens to conceal carry (fine for retired police officers) and providing medical care for abortion survivors (the infants, not the women) by recording a campaign spot for him.

I assumed that anyone wanting to run on the GOP ticket would be doing so to offer voters a disparate choice, not to be liberal lite with an R by their name. Perhaps I assumed too much of Kirk Dillard.

I hear from tea partiers, various conservative groups constantly about taking action, effecting actual change. Here is a chance for those exact people to put their money and their time where their mouth is and scratch a RINO, another Dede Scozzafava off the Republican ticket. So many people are celebrating Scott Brown’s victory but don’t realize that in order for any of this to have amounted to any sort of worth, Brown’s victory needs to be replicated eleventy-fold across the country.

I remarked in July that this journey wouldn’t be easy, it’s not a task for pansies, it’s not a task for people who complain about the nanny state government but are content to warm their hands by another’s fire with nanny state activists. The privilege of a free society is that every man, woman, and child has the opportunity – and the obligation as a free people – to determine the trajectory of their country, of a political race. They have a chance to influence this race, and others.

Kirk Dillard is the epitome of what’s wrong with the Republican party. Writes Illinois Review:

KIRK DILLARD TALKS ABOUT ETHICS … WHEN NOT ASKING FOR FAVORS. The state launched another Ethics investigation, this time into politicians using clout to get subpar applicants into U of I. By his own count, Dillard wrote 7 such letters. He argues it is no big deal, he checks ACT scores before telling the school to “take a hard look” at an applicant. He should know there are people who are paid to do that – they work in Admissions.

[...]

KIRK DILLARD RAISED TAXES… BUT IS OPPOSED TO TAX HIKES. Just a year ago Dillard crossed his Republican colleagues and voted with Springfield Democrats to pass an RTA sales tax hike for suburban residents. Now he says he opposes tax increases. That’s a quick flip, even for Kirk.

[...]

After 20 years on the clock, it is hard to imagine Dillard convincing voters that he is the guy for the job – even if Barack does the commercials.

There is a Scott Brown in this race, but his name is a little more difficult to pronounce.
It’s Andrzejewski.

(Fun bonus question: Which came first: the Dillard or the Scozzafava?)

From the Weekly Standard reporter himself:

A tipster tells me that the man who was pushing me outside of a Capitol Hill fundraiser Tuesday night for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley is Michael Meehan.

Meehan heads up a firm called Blue Line Strategic Communications along with his partner David DiMartino, who was outside the fundraiser with Coakley tonight and introduced himself to me there. TheAP reported on Monday that Meehan is also working for Coakley: “The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also dispatched Michael Meehan, a media consultant with ties to Massachusetts, to assist the Coakley camp with messaging.”

Though I can’t say with 100 percent certainty, I think that Meehan is the man who shoved me into a metal railing Tuesday night.

Coakley’s strongarm appears to be a longtime Democrat party hack. No surprise there.

This, the video of the Coakley thug visibly knocking down, shoving, and harassing reporter John McCormack:

The thug appeared to shove McCormack back and prevent him from asking Coakley any questions. More:

McCormack said Coakley blew him off, and then he followed her for a few blocks until he was shoved by a man he believes was Meehan, who is working with the Coakley campaign.

“I ended up on the sidewalk. I was fine,” McCormack wrote in the Weekly Standard. “He helped me up from the ground, but kept pushing up against me, blocking my path toward Coakley down the street.”

When McCormack asked the man whom he worked for, he replied, “I work for me,” demanding to see McCormack’s credentials on a public street. After McCormack showed him his ID, he said he met up with Coakley halfway down the block, asking her question that she declined to answer.

Coakley is definitely amping up the negativity, suggesting that Brown’s grassroots supporters are “hate groups,” tossing around grandiose statements about her political stature (”If I don’t win, 2010 is going to be hell for Democrats“), apparently hiring union workers to rally for her:

The heat of Brown’s success online and his record $1 million dollar-in-a-day fundraising – coupled with the ethics complaint Coakley faces over the charge that she used state resources on her campaign, relying on SEIU to phone bank for her, her sagging poll numbers, (not to mention the embarrassing misspelling of the very state for which she’s campaigning in one of her commercials), are all taking a toll on her manufactured-to-win countenance.

She and the Democratic party are quickly learning that through Massachusetts, the American people are beginning to say “no.”

Friday morning Jamie Allman and I interviewed Claire McCaskill who gave further signs of Democrat infighting as she agreed to issue a press release saying that she supports having a broadcasted conference committee on the fauxcare negotiations. She was challenged as to why, whenever on the Sunday morning talk shows or making other media rounds, she had not taken the opportunity to voice dissent against the actions of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to make the deliberations private.

She also acknowledged that the legislation does enforce penalties for Americans who do not choose government-run fauxcare.

McCaskill also singled me out by saying my calling her out on her fauxcare vote (because the majority of Americans and Missourians do not support it and her approval rating is sliding as a result) was “politicizing the issue.” I’d say not making yourself available to your constituents (her staff was nice but callers rarely get through and the senator obviously disregards the polling data) and voting for an unconstitutional bill which abuses the commerce clause for the sake of giving Democrats a win under the guise of providing real reform while not actually providing real reform – is real politicizing.

McCaskill did release her statement:

“Hundreds of hours of debate on health-csare reform — both in committee hearings and on the Senate and House floors — have been open to the public through broadcast on C-SPAN,” her statement read.

“I believe that the best way for these negotiations to occur is through the conference committee process, and I have communicated my opinion to the leadership of my party in the Senate.”

Kudos on that end – but so what? I’m not lathering on praise for her doing the job she was elected to do; that awards mediocrity. McCaskill still supports the egregiously unconstitutional aspects of this legislation; her wanting the discussion of merging two faulty bills together does nothing to change that.

Brown’s chances have been speculative as the most recent poll, until today, was one from November which showed Brown trailing Coakley by 58-27 with 15% undecided. That’s changed since Rasmussen released their latest poll which shows Coakley’s lead sputtering:

State Attorney General Martha Coakley holds a nine-point lead over her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, in Massachusetts’ special U.S. Senate election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Validating what we all thought: that Scott Brown can win this race. Especially if you consider:

The health care issue is expected to play a big role in the debate and Massachusetts voters hold modestly favorable attitudes about the proposed legislation. In the Bay State, 53% favor the plan working its way through Congress and 45% oppose it.

However, as is the case nationally, those who feel strongly about the bill are more likely to be opposed. The overall figures include 36% who Strongly Oppose the plan while 27% Strongly Favor it.

This will be a referendum on fauxcare.

The independent voters is what will get Coakley:

Both candidates get better than 70% of the vote from members of their respective parties, but Brown leads 65% to 21% among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties.

This dovetails with earlier polling which showed that the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats is dropping; also it’s the rise of the independents. Independents are also the group which played the deciding role in the Virginia and New Jersey races last year. Democrats should have been paying attention:

The independent voters who powered President Obama and Democrats to victory in 2008 fled to Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, helping the GOP romp to a ticketwide sweep in Virginia and a stunning victory over an incumbent Democratic governor in New Jersey.

Virginia was a big state for Obama to win in ‘08, too. Barely a year later it went red. Why? Because of independents:

The two gubernatorial contests have been deemed by some analysts as the first major referendum on President Obama’s administration. Republicans leaders, demoralized after landslide defeats in 2006 and 2008, have been hoping to capitalize on wins in Virginia and New Jersey to help fuel a nationwide Republican resurgence.

They were buoyed by a huge swing of independent voters to the Republican column.

The race in Massachusetts will be decided by independents – which doesn’t bode well for Coakley considering a) Brown leads with that voting bloc and b) as referenced above, the state is polling more conservative on issues that she in her platform.

Of course, being backed by the corrupt SEIU and caught in a scandal isn’t helping Coakley, either.

Scott Brown is a vote to legislatively confirm that which voters have shown they desire by way of the polls. Coakley would sell out their interests and serve as nothing more than Reid, Pelosi, and Obama’s rubber stamp on fauxcare, cap-and-trade, and the further socialization of our private industries.

A  perfect example of how all politics is local … except when the outcome decides the fate of a nation.

These are the most Underreported Stories of 2009:

1. CLIMATEGATE
Al Gore needs something to sustain him and his big pimpin’ life down at his ginormous, energy-sucking mansion in Tennessee. Thus the green market was born, a made-up market chock full of products like carbon credits and other Willy Wonka (but not as cool) ish items for people to buy as a way to feel good about themselves and their contribution to the planet without having to actually do anything. They don’t need a God! They need a Prius!

Celebrities Botoxed within an inch of their lives began popping up in PSA’s about global warming, about how we need to drive inefficient clown cars that run on electricity (which is still produced in coal-powered plants but hey, whatever) to save the planet. Musicians like Sheryl Crow crowed about using just a square of toilet paper to remove waste that has a greater street value than her latest album. All the hubris manifested in regulations handed down from Congress upon the automobile industry, the coal industry, et al., until finally! Cap’n Trade appeared in the House.

Cap’n Trade will rape and pillage your energy bills and even boss you around when it comes to remodeling or rehabbing a home. It’s almost like … congress has nothing better to do.

Then … there was Climategate. Russian hackers revealed emails from a British university (whose edicts on global warming are included in the U.N.’s decision-making process on climate) which showed that the scientists basically had no idea what they hell they were talking about but they did know that their original assessment of increased global temperatures was unsupported by data, thus, “hide the decline.”
2. THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT
I feel bad for the staffer that had to check Nancy Pelosi’s pants after over a million tea party protesters marched past her window on September 12, 2009.

The tea party movement sprung from plain old disenchantment, disappointment, and outright anger at being fleeced by a government who mistook their primary job as being “spend cash mon-nay” rather than execute the Constitution. What began as a few groups of several hundred people gathering in the cold back in February morphed into a movement so big that now talk of PACs and third parties (total crap idea, that latter) are commonplace and a Republican candidate has no hope of winning an election without the tea party support.

The most misreported and misunderstood thing about the tea party is its political leanings. The tea party has no political leaning. It stands straight for limited government, low taxes, and liberty for all. Disagreement with those tenets is an accidental admission of socialism on the part of the antagonist. The beauty of the tea party movement is that it is independent and thus a true check and balance of the Republican and Democrat parties. It’s not a pawn of the GOP, thus untouchable in criticism of the Democrats – I view it as an unattached conscience of the Republican party.

The tea parties have been smeared, and while some haven’t helped against the charges of astroturf due to their worship of both God and money, the movement is pure.

A new version of the Minuteman has sprung from this movement: the patriot activist with the Gadsen flag on her shoulder and a video recorder or camera in her hand.

Photo courtesy Rob Brenner.

3. FORT HOOD AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM IN THE U.S.
A guy with a history of terrorist activity (the FBI had been watching him for months) and bent on mass murder screams “ALLAHU AKBAR!” before shooting a pregnant soldier point-blank at a military base and the media would rather cover its genitals like a dog and cower in the corner rather than define the terrorist as a terrorist.

Rather, the media interviewed people who said that shooter Malik Nadal Hasan had “trouble fitting in” and isn’t it so sad how he was treated differently because of his religion? Lightbulb moment: hey! Perhaps he was treated differently because he felt prejudiced against his fellow soldiers whom he viewed as infidels who should die?

Hasan had “soldier of Allah” printed on his business cards, for crying out loud.

Nevermind that he was a participant in Obama’s transition Homeland Security  team. Oops!

4. ACORN and SEIU
Only in America can you offer to help smuggle in underage sex workers as part of your description as a taxpayer-funded “community organizer” and still get federal dollars after the scandal breaks. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles exposed ACORN for what it truly is: a malignancy that consumes the life out of depressed areas that it never, ever improves, ever, all in the name of making residents dependent upon the teat of government welfare so as to exploit them for votes later”neighborhood organizing.”

Michael Walsh explains the repurcussions of the dynamic duo’s work:

The Senate voted 83-7 in favor of de-funding the controversial group. The House voted 345-75 to cut ACORN’s funding, and more than 20 states have demanded either a full investigation of ACORN or that they lose their funding. The IRS also ended up cutting their connections to the group.

O’Keefe and Giles made a mockery of the media who retaliated by refusing to cover the story, further hammering the last nail into their own coffin.

Despite all of this, Big Government wrote how after this egregious corruption, Democrats like Roland Burris still found a way to push for continued ACORN funding by slipping a provision requiring such in Harry Reid’s senate fauxcare bill.

SEIU shares #4 with SCORN (typo and it stays) after several of its purple people beaters attacked Kenneth Gladney (a black street vendor who I’d previously seen selling pro-Obama buttons at Obama’s Arnold, MO townhall) at Russ Carnahan’s townhall in Mehlville, Missouri after profiling him and assuming him to be a black conservative. One of the country’s most shocking and underreported race-provoked attacks grew worse when his brother, Keith Gladney, spoke out in his brother’s defense and is said to have been canned from his job two days before Christmas as a result.

At the time of this writing neither Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or President Obama have offered to arrange a beer summit between Kenneth Gladney and Andy Stern.

5. HCR COVER-UP
The majority of the country opposes Harry Reid’s Senate bill but nevertheless, Reid bribed it through. Government media served as a mouthpiece for the administration and its policy on fauxcare, giving the President multiple hours of free network prime-time hours to peddle his snake oil on the airwaves.

The Senate vote marks the turning point in our government where those elected to represent the constituency failed to do the jobs for which they were placed in office. It was a vote of tyranny, not of representation.
6. NEA
The White House is attempting to mimic Leni Riefenstahl by rounding up those in the arts and entertainment industry and using them as the vehicles through which President Obama can peddle his agenda, I wrote back in September. Big Government combed over this scandal which went completely ignored by the media. Union baby Buffy Wicks, from the Office of Public Engagement and Serve.gov, the NEA, and others joined a variety of artists and promoters on a conference call, the goal of which was to figure out how to create propaganda to support Obama’s policies.

Big Government Editor Mike Flynn expounded further on the scandal and reminded readers how Wicks used the Serve.gov portal as a way to funnel volunteers to ACORN and other pro-Obama organizations, at taxpayer expense.

Jinkies! Looks like artists are going to have to work harder and nab more photos that other people have taken so that they can do cheesy, tri-color alterations to them that pass as pretentious, overrated and quasi-Photoshop Level 1 “art” to the people whose discernment went off the rails.

7. DHS, NAPOLITANO TARGET DISSENT
While the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano were busy marking down the names of veterans, grandmas, and college kids who waved the military-authorized Gadsen Flag or questioned Obama’s policies in public as “possible domestic terrorists,” real terrorists were already in our country, shooting up our military bases and attempting to detonate planes. Michael Savage, himself the target of the British government based upon his dissent, filed suit against Napolitano in April over DHS’s “right wing extremist” report. The charges stated:

“It is a civil rights action brought under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, challenging the policy, practice, and custom of the United States Government that targets for disfavored treatment those individuals and groups that are considered to be ‘rightwing extremists.”

Under the Obama administration, the government has brazenly trained its eye on those who respectfully question the government. Liberals who complained over the Patriot Act demonstrated their devotion to party over liberty by going silent as their American brethren were targeting for doing no more (less, actually) than they the liberals did under Bush.

7. KEVIN JENNINGS – FISTGATE
It wouldn’t be right if our current administration broke tradition with nominating completely inept radicals to high positions of power (gotta pay off those political favors!) and lucky for you betting types, that streak wasn’t broken with Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.

Ah yes, the Three Rs and One F of education: Readin, Ritin’ and ‘Rithmetic. Oh, and Fisting. The required credentials for such a post:

Jennings was appointed to the position largely because of his longtime record of working to end bullying and discrimination in schools. In 1990, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which now has over 40 chapters at schools nationwide. He has also published six books on gay rights and education, including one that describes his own experiences as a closeted gay student.

Behold, the comedy gold:

“Jennings was obviously chosen for this job because of the safe schools aspect… defining ’safe schools’ narrowly in terms of ’safe for homosexuality’,” Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told FOXNews.com.

“But at least half of the job involves creating drug-free schools, and we’ve not been offered any evidence about what qualifications Jennings has for promoting drug-free schools.”

Jennings’ detractors note that he made four references to his personal drug abuse in his 2007 autobiography, “Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son: A Memoir.” On page 103, discussing his high school years in Hawaii in the early 1980s, Jennings wrote:

“I got stoned more often and went out to the beach at Bellows, overlooking Honolulu Harbor and the lights of the city, to drink with my buddies on Friday and Saturday nights, spending hours watching the planes take off and land at the airport, which is actually quite fascinating when you are drunk and stoned.”

Er … oops? Nobody’s perfect, but it just seems practical to maybe not glorify drug use in your book while trying to get a job which requires you to keep schools and kids drug free. Too obvious?

Oh, but then came the revelations as to what GLSEN’s recommended reading actually included and Katy-bar-the-door. It was discovered that at a GLSEN conference (in conjunction with the MA Department of Education no less) elementary school kids were taught how to engage in sex acts.

Gateway Pundit reported mercilessly – as I’d hoped that anyone who cared about the well-being of our schoolchildren would do – about the “recommended reading” list Jennings chose for GLSEN and young schoolchildren which included graphic descriptions of rest-room sex and more.

State media was silent and liberal sites, such as Media Matters, defended Jennings.
8. VAN JONES
Van Jones signed his political death certificate when he signed a 9/11 truther petition stating that he believed that our own government took down the Twin Towers and not terrorists, the petition brought to light by Gateway Pundit. Of course, under an administration that refuses to even use the language because it may hurt the feelings of suicide bombers and be judged as “divisive,” one can see how Jones might not understand that the terrorists are actually our enemies.

The radical environmental czar (a one-time STORM participant, a Marxist organization) and admitted communist in the Obama administration was forced to resign, further tainting the judgement of the administration, who later admitted to not having vetted Jones well enough.

The disparity between the eerie silence from state media and the raucous exclamations from the blogosphere was expected but sad nonetheless.
9. OBAMA’S LACK OF SUCCESS
Don’t expect to see much media criticism – even if it’s objective and deserved – of our infant Messiah president. The media has a lot invested into him and they unofficially hung the last shred of their validity on his success. It’s not to say that conservatives don’t want a successful president; we define success differently than liberals. Conservatives want the United States to be successful in foreign relations, we want a thriving economy, success in maintaining individual liberty, all the good stuff of which America is made. Conservatives don’t want to see plans to nationalize and thereby socialize the private sector because the very irony of such economic strategy is that it hasn’t been successful in multitude of countries in which it’s been implemented.

Conservatives aren’t the only ones questioning Obama’s trajectory; he’s been sliding in the polls since spring; the majority of Americans disapprove of his march on health care reform; yet the media downplays all of this because they’ve gambled it all on the success of this political neophyte who quit his job as a senator so he could hightail it to Washington. (What was that the left said about quitters?)

The media’s complicity in shoring up a failing president has given an excuse for the current congressional body to repeatedly ignore the will of the people. Blogs are the new penny press; corporate media is dead.

Happy New Year!

Is it Opposite Day?

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

So Medicare and Medicaid are about to go bust because the costs are making them unaffordable, yet Obama and Harry Reid wanted to lower the inclusion age for Medicare down to age 55 from age 65 and also reduce costs while claiming to not reduce the quality of care. What kind of math is this? Because it is AWESOME.

Actually, what isn’t awesome is that excise taxes, coupled with rationing limiting the availability of certain types and duration of care, is what (they hope! Fingers crossed!) will control costs.

If Obama and company are worried about cost all of a sudden, this must be why they immediately addressed tort reform in the bill, because, as the CBO said, doing so would save them $54 billion annually – but oh, NOPE, no tort reform. Surely, since the President and his fellow Democrats are so concerned about costs, they wouldn’t do anything reckless, like, say, shove through another trillion-dollar spending bill that includes a nice pay raise for federal workers.

Wrong again, they did that.

The Democratic party, respective to health care, is like a person who was sent into the store to purchase a gallon of milk and some butter for the evening’s meal and instead walked out with a “Gladiator” DVD, a can of Easy Cheese, and some Homer Simpson house slippers because HOW FUNNY ARE THEY?! Dems had a chance to really tackle that which is truly burdening our system and they dropped the ball. They went after insurance companies – businesses who are businesses because the last I checked, we lived in a capitalistic society – but protected the trial lawyers, the very people who drive up costs with oftentimes egregious lawsuits and make it more difficult for those who were truly affected by malpractice to receive justice. Sure, insurance companies aren’t without their their problems, but the lack of consistency costs the Democrats their validity.

Some people completely misunderstand the root of the problem within the context of preexisting conditions. An oldie but a goodie from Powerline:

You can’t buy insurance against something that has already happened. You can try to make someone else pay your bills, maybe, but you can’t buy insurance. The fact that that plaintiff’s building had burned down was a preexisting condition.

It’s no wonder that health insurance policies have historically excluded coverage for preexisting conditions. You can insure against the risk that you might get cancer, but if you already have cancer, it’s not a risk, it’s a certainty.

[...]

health insurance is conventionally linked to employment–the curse of our present system–creates huge distortions. If an employee changes jobs, the consequence may be a change in insurance companies. A condition that was covered under the old plan is preexisting from the standpoint of his new carrier. Unlike my plaintiff who regretted his decision not to buy insurance on his building, the employee who changes jobs is entirely blameless and didn’t set out to assume a risk.

The GOP tried to remedy this and were blocked by Democrats. From the Wall Street Journal, May, 2009:

Called the Patients’ Choice Act, it would eliminate the tax break that employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their workers. Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the system of employer-based coverage is becoming “a 21st century relic” as companies become less generous with benefits.

Democrats instead chose to derail their entire scheme by hanging it up on things such as elective procedures like abortion, penalties for people who don’t “chose the right” of health care (note the irony of their “pro-choice” sentiment), cutting home health care and capping treatment to make their math (sort of) work.

Not passing Obamacare won’t bankrupt America; passing it will.

Perhaps Obama should direct his scare tactics at the very people who screwed up the chance to improve the health care system: his own party.

Related reading:

$10000 marriage penalty hidden in Obama-Reid “Health” Care Bill

Photo by Dana Loesch

St. Louis County Prosecutors watered-down the charges in the Kenneth Gladney case from a misdemeanor to an ordinance violation without so much as even calling St. John’s Hospital, where Gladney received treatment for his injuries, and checking Gladney’s hospital record or speaking with care providers on site.

Elston McCowan and Perry Molens were witnessed on video assaulting Gladney who is seen being taken to the ground. Cheryl Johner punched Kelly Owens in the face – which Owens caught on camera, an assault witnessed by a police officer, according to the police report – and all three get off with nothing more that ordinance violations.

Owens beating recap:

It has been discovered that no one from Patricia Redington’s office ever accessed Gladney’s medical records for use in determining the charges filed in the case.

Not only did the prosecuting attorney’s office fail to immediately file charges after the assaults, but now it would seem that partiality is being shown as evidenced by the downsize in the severity of charges without even checking on the extent of Gladney’s injuries.

Remember that Patricia Redington’s office made sure to file charges against Bill Federer, on behalf of Dick Gephardt campaigner James Larrew (which were subsequently tossed) on the following day, which was a national holiday. Redington is said to not have actually interviewed any witnessed, either.

So:

No witnesses interviewed.

Medical record wasn’t accessed.

They must have a magic crystal ball because I don’t know how you can file charges without actually investigating the case.

Gladney beating recap:

Developing …

*Update 1: I’m hearing that the review fell under Assistant County Prosecutor Brian Malone. Contact info:

100 S Central Ave
St Louis, MO 63105-1732
(314) 615-2600
(314) 615-7042

Related:

Anatomy of a Beat-down Part 1: Why Kenneth Gladney was Beaten, and by Whom