discussion comment
15 years ago
On June 27, 2008, Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., school system, paid a visit to Gerald Walpin, who was inspector general of the government volunteer organization AmeriCorps.
At the time, Walpin was investigating a California private school known as St. Hope, which was founded by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star and friend of Rhee's who was running for mayor of Sacramento. St. Hope had received about $850,000 in AmeriCorps money, and Walpin's investigators were looking into charges that Johnson had misused those funds by assigning paid volunteer tutors to run errands for him and wash his car, as well as making them take part in political activities.
In the course of the investigation, some young female AmeriCorps volunteers also charged that Johnson had made inappropriate sexual advances toward them and offered one of them $1,000 a month to keep quiet.
Rhee, who later became engaged to marry Johnson, had been on St. Hope's board of directors before taking over as chief of the District of Columbia system. Her apparent goal, as she visited Walpin, was to vouch for Johnson.
"The basic point of her meeting with me was to tell me what a great guy he was," Walpin recalls, "and what wonderful work he has done, and that maybe he had made mistakes administratively, but that she thought I should give as much consideration as possible to his good work in deciding what to do."
Rhee's visit wasn't a big success. Not long after the meeting, the Corporation for National and Community Service, which is the agency that oversees AmeriCorps, banned Johnson from receiving any more federal money. Walpin referred the financial allegations, as well as the accusations of sexual misconduct, to the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento. St. Hope was eventually ordered to pay back $425,000 of the AmeriCorps cash. Prosecutors took no action on the sexual allegations. Johnson, meanwhile, won the mayor's race.
In June of this year, President Obama abruptly fired Walpin. The White House was apparently unhappy with the zeal with which he conducted the St. Hope probe.
Rhee's June 2008 visit to Walpin's office wasn't her first talk with him. Shortly before that, she had called Walpin, apparently to see how the investigation was going. It was widely reported at the time that Rhee was planning to include St. Hope in a group of educational organizations that would be hired to run 10 of the District's most troubled high schools.
"Because she knew we were investigating Johnson, she called me to find out whether there would be anything coming out that she should take into account in deciding whether to contract with Johnson," Walpin says. "I told her I could not give her any bottom line as to what we were doing, but she knew that we were looking into the St. Hope matter."
At the time of her conversations with Walpin, Rhee was not only aware of the financial misuse investigation; she appears to have known about the sexual misconduct allegations, too. According to a new report by Republican investigators in the House and Senate, a former St. Hope employee told Walpin's staff that Rhee "learned of the allegations and played the role of a fixer, doing 'damage control.'"
That was in 2007, well before Rhee visited Walpin. So it appears she knew about both problems, yet was still contemplating having St. Hope take part in running some D.C. high schools.
discussion comment
15 years ago
G. Improper Sexual Physical Conduct
Our investigation disclosed evidence of sexual misconduct towards young female Members by Mr. Johnson. One Member, [REDACTED] (Ex. 19 hereto), reported that, in the February/March 2007 time frame, she was entering grades into the SAC High database system per Mr. Johnson's instructions at the St. HOPE office at night, purportedly as part of her AmeriCorps service. [REDACTED] contacted Mr. Johnson to inform him that she had completed the grades and wanted him to review them. About 11:00 pm, Mr. Johnson arrived at St. HOPE and instructed [REDACTED] to gather her things and come with him. Mr. Johnson drove to [REDACTED] apartment, which is managed by St. HOPE Development and houses its AmeriCorps Members, purportedly so that they could review the students' grades. While in [REDACTED], in which another AmeriCorps Member had a separate bedroom, Mr, Johnson laid down on [REDACTED's] bed, [REDACTED] sat on the edge of the bed to show him the grades, at which time Mr. Johnson "layed down behind me, cupping his body around mine like the letter C. After about 2-3 minutes or so, I felt his hand on my left side where my hip bone is." Further, although not detailed in her written statement, [REDACTED], during the interview, demonstrated, while explaining, that Mr. Johnson's hand went under her untucked shirt and moved until his hand was on her hip. [REDACTED] immediately got up and stated she was done and left the room. When she returned, Mr. Johnson was still in her bed, but now apparently sleeping. Only after [REDACTED] sought to take a blanket to sleep elsewhere did Mr. Johnson exit to the living room of the apartment. [REDACTED] related that Mr. Johnson slept on the couch in her apartment living room that night and subsequently left the apartment at approximately 6 a.m. the next day.
After, as [REDACTED] put it, she "got the courage to tell... my supervisors," she reported the incident, which, she was informed, was communicated to St. HOPE Academy's Human Resources Department and the Chief Financial Officer. The night after [REDACTED] made her report, Mr. Johnson approached her and apologized. Subsequently, Kevin Hiestand, Johnson's personal attorney, met with [REDACTED], described himself only "as a friend of Johnson," and "basically asked me to keep quiet." Also, about one week after this incident, when [REDACTED] told Mr. Johnson she was going to quit because of financial and family reasons, Mr. Johnson "offered to give me $1,000 a month until the end of the program," stating that it would be confidential "between him and I." As [REDACTED] related that conversation, Mr. Johnson "said all he needed was my savings account number," he would make the deposit and "no one needed to know about it." [REDACTED] did not accept this offer by giving Mr. Johnson her account number.
Another former Member, [REDACTED] (Ex. 20 hereto), reported that, while attending a St. HOPE sponsored trip to Harlem, NY, from June 26 to July 16, 2006, Mr. Johnson, on three occasions, "brushed [her] leg with his hand," including once "flip[ingj up the edge of her skirt. Other times, she stated, Mr. Johnson kissed her cheek, brushed up against her as he walked past, and massaged her shoulders. ([REDACTED] reported another incident that occurred in Sacramento, CA, in which Mr. Johnson touched [REDACTED's] inner thigh with his hand while enroute to a restaurant. [REDACTED] said she did not report the incidents to AmeriCorps officials at that time because she feared she would be terminated from the program and because Mr. Johnson was assisting her in obtaining acceptance into the United States Military Academy, where she subsequently enrolled.
In addition, former SAC High teacher Mr. Erik Jones (Ex. 12 hereto) reported that a former AmeriCorps Member, [REDACTED], reported to him, sometime in 2007, that, while at SAC High, Mr. Johnson had inappropriately touched her. Mr. Jones stated that [REDACTED] had reported that Mr. Johnson started massaging her shoulders and then reached over and touched her breasts. (Attempts to interview [REDACTED] have been so far unsuccessful.) Mr. Jones related that, after he reported this incident to St. HOPE Academy officials, he was contacted by Mr. Hiestand, Mr. Johnson's attorney, but who identified himself solely as St. HOPE'S counsel, and stated he was conducting an internal investigation. Mr. Hiestand told Mr. Jones that [REDACTED's] "story" was different from Mr, Jones' and told Mr. Jones to change his "story" and then go back to work. Mr. Jones, realizing what he was being asked to do, elected to resign as a teacher and left SAC High.
discussion comment
15 years ago
Maybe she doesn't know anything about medicaid
discussion comment
15 years ago
Does Gridget wander like many sheep?
discussion comment
15 years ago
I've never had a hand job at a club, and I have gotten dances at ShadowCat's club. Is asking for it a good strategy? Are there certain number of dances required before they will do it?
discussion comment
15 years ago
Three suspected illegal immigrants terrorized a Florida couple and their son for two days at gunpoint, forcing the woman to withdraw $24,000 and shooting her as she tried to escape ...
discussion comment
15 years ago
Nicolas Cage was in Kenya visiting imprisoned Somali pirates on Tuesday just days after he lost his two houses in New Orleans in foreclosure and he was hit with a countersuit by the former business manager he is suing for fraud.
Cage, a UN Goodwill Ambassador on Drugs & Crime, was in Mombasa to tour the Shimo La Tewa prison, where many captured Somali pirates are being held.
"I'm in a position where I can actually make some sense and talk about it when I go back to the States," Cage told The Associated Press.
The star of the new "Bad Lieutenant" remake, who owes the IRS $6.6 million, might be safer in Kenya, where he won't be able to spend his Hollywood millions so quickly.
discussion comment
15 years ago
"How fortunate for politicians
that people do not think."
-Adolf Hitler
discussion comment
15 years ago
When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the AP assigned 11 people to fact check all 432 pages.
The organization did not review for accuracy either book by Barack Obama, recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden,or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton.
That's the vermin in the media
discussion comment
15 years ago
The Senate Armed Services Committee postponed its Monday briefing on the deadly Fort Hood massacre at the behest of the White House, despite calls from some lawmakers to press forward with a congressional investigation into the shooting rampage that killed 13 and wounded 29.
What is the Great One afraid of?
discussion comment
15 years ago
lol Dougster
discussion comment
15 years ago
I think we should get the heck outta Afghanistan. Agree or disagree?
discussion comment
15 years ago
15 million lap dances for Americans
OR
$150 million to our competitors and/or enemies?
I choose the former. Which side are you on?
discussion comment
15 years ago
"While I submit that.."
Who talks like that other than pompous trust fund brats?
discussion comment
15 years ago
Newsweek has done it again: a few weeks after acknowledging half its letters were critical of Joe Biden (but publishing none of them), they proclaimed their Al Gore cover was unpopular. Forty-six percent of their letter writers wrote on the subject of Gore, and 74 percent of them were critical. Still, Newsweek ran only positive letters. The first, most prominent one (in larger red type) read: "Until each nation makes responsibility for this earth a priority, we will continue to devastate it – and ourselves."
discussion comment
15 years ago
NY Gov. David Paterson openly criticized the White House on Monday, saying he thought it was a terrible idea to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists to New York for trial.
"This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country," he said.
discussion comment
15 years ago
A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.
discussion comment
15 years ago
Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress.
Whether a jury ultimately convicts KSM and his fellows, or sentences them to death, is beside the point. The treatment of the 9/11 attacks as a criminal matter rather than as an act of war will cripple American efforts to fight terrorism. It is in effect a declaration that this nation is no longer at war.
KSM is the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—and a "terrorist entrepreneur," according to the 9/11 Commission report. He was the brains behind a succession of operations against the U.S., including the 1996 "Bojinka plot" to crash jetliners into American cities. Together with Osama bin Laden, he selected the 9/11 terrorists, arranged their financing and training, and ran the whole operation from abroad.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan KSM eventually became bin Laden's operations chief. American and Pakistani intelligence forces captured him on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Now, however, KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens—including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it.
Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.
This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "blind Sheikh"), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.
In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.
discussion comment
15 years ago
I was talking about THAT room at THAT club only
discussion comment
15 years ago
Shadow, I'm shocked she would do daty in that lap dance room. Wouldn't she be fired if caught? Which side of the room were you on?
discussion comment
15 years ago
What services were to be given in the SUV?
discussion comment
15 years ago
Doctors who crossed paths with Hasan in medical programs paint a picture of a subpar student who wore his religious views on his sleeve.
Several doctors who knew Hasan spoke to CNN, but only on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Hasan "was clearly espousing Islamist ideology" during his time as a medical student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, one of his former classmates said.
After the shooting, Hasan's family revealed little about him, saying in media interviews that Hasan was a "good American" and a lifelong Muslim who complained that he was harassed in the Army because of his religion.
His former classmates describe a much more militant man.
His presentations for school were often laced with extremist Muslim views, one source said.
"Is your allegiance to Sharia [Islamic] law or the United States?" students once challenged Hasan, the source said.
"Sharia law," the source says Hasan responded.
The incident was corroborated by another doctor who was present.
The source also recalled an instance in which Hasan was asked if the U.S. Constitution was a brilliant document, to which Hasan replied, "No, not particularly."
The former classmate told CNN that he voiced concerns about Hasan to supervisors at the school.
A second former medical school colleague of Hasan said that several people raised concerns about Hasan's overall competence.
Even though Hasan earned his medical degree and residency, some of his fellow students believed that he "didn't have the intellect" to be in the program and was not academically rigorous in his coursework.
Hasan "was not fit to be in the military, let alone in the mental health profession," this classmate told CNN. "No one in class would ever have referred a patient to him, or trusted him with anything."
The first classmate echoed this sentiment.
Hasan was "coddled, accommodated and pushed through that masters of public health despite substandard performance," the classmate said. He was "put in the fellowship program because they didn't know what to do with him."
The second classmate said he witnessed at least two of Hasan's PowerPoint discussions that included what he described as extremist views.
In these presentations, which were supposed to be about health, the source said that Hasan justified suicide bombings and spoke about the persecution of Muslims in the Middle East, in the United States and in the U.S. military.
Some in the crowd rolled their eyes or muttered under their breath, he said, and others were clearly uncomfortable.
discussion comment
15 years ago
MisterGay and himself, a love story
discussion comment
15 years ago
MisterGay is in love with himself
discussion comment
15 years ago
MisterGay is a hopeless moron. He brings down the IQ of my threads.