Remember the guy who was supposedly beat up by the SEIU in St Louis? Here's an update:

[proud2BlibKansan]

Kenneth Gladney Update

Kenneth Gladney was named "Ass Clown of the Week" by an overwhelming margin in this week's Riverfront Times poll. I personally would have voted for Gladney's opportunistic "attorney who sells junk at political rallies" David Brown, but this is still good news as it shows that the only people who are swallowing the right-wing story whole with all of its inconsistencies are the same 30% of Americans who think Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya. See some of my previous writings about Gladney and Brown here and here.

Gladney also announced that he is going to be going on a nationwide tour with the Tea Party Express, a national propaganda campaign for the AstroTurf movement. Interestingly, Gladney announced the following on his I Am Kenneth Gladney site, another money making instrument:

Kenneth wants to make it clear that he is not funded by any special interest group or political party. Kenneth vows never to accept funds from any of these sources. Project Liberty is "people-powered." As with any endeavor of this magnitude, there are costs associated with this. If you would like to help defray these costs in this fight for liberty, stand up with Kenneth and donate today (emphasis mine).

Yet you can see right on the bottom of the front page of the Teabag Express page a list of "partners" for the tour, including Freedom Works. Freedom Works is not just a special interest group, but in fact is literally the quintessential AstroTurf special interest group, led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who also headed, before being forced to resign due to the scandal, a lobbying firm that is employed by many companies who benefit from the current health care system. You can watch a great Rachel Maddow video destroying Freedom Works here:

more . . . http://stlactivisthub.blogspot.com/2009/08/kenneth-gladney-update.html#comment-form

[Psephos]

1. It wasn't supposedly.

However, he didn't have the tar kicked out of him either. Teabaggers have blown it out of perspective. Progressives have tried to mock it. Both are wrong.

There are assholes distributed across the political spectrum. It's in everyone's best interest to focus on the assholes instead of the party to which they supposedly belong.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Maybe you have some information I don't have

Cause all I saw was a video that showed one of the SEIU guys being beat on and Gladney jumping up and down and running over to tell the cops he had been assaulted. Then I saw another video showing Gladney in a wheelchair claiming he was too weak to speak and he needed help with medical expenses. But lo and behold he had insurance.

I also read an interview of the SEIU guy who was beat up. He claimed Gladney was not injured.

So maybe you can explain how BOTH are wrong. I saw a right wing ass fraudulently claiming he had been injured and collecting money for his health care when he had insurance. I didn't see the SEIU doing anything wrong.

[Psephos]

9. Not much, but here's a link to raw video of what happened.

Unedited, uncommented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTXBOgPCh9w

Looks to me like guys wearing union shirts kicking Gladney as he cringes on the ground.

What do you see?

[drm604]

10. It's a little difficult to tell who's who at the beginning of that video.

I see a couple of people on the ground but I've looked at it several times and I don't see anybody kicking anybody.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. A guy tries to kick the SEIU guy but loses his balance

Another SEIU guy pulls Gladney off of the guy on the ground. Then the guy (teabagger) on the left accuses the SEIU guy of attacking Gladney.

I think it's possible that the SEIU guy and Gladney got into it. But we can't tell from the video who started it.

[drm604]

14. I don't see it.

It doesn't look to me like he's trying to kick anybody. He loses his balance for some reason. It almost looks like he tripped or someone grabbed his foot (below camera level) causing him to fall.

It sort of looks to me like the aftermath of something. People are on the ground and others are protecting them then helping them up. I think the real action, if any, happened before the start of the video.

Gladney is walking around afterwards and doesn't appear to me to be seriously injured. The guy shouting "you attacked him" almost seems to be playing to the camera, but I could be mistaken.

[Psephos]

16. Kinda murky to me too

Looks to me like whatever action there was happened mostly before the camera was turned on. SEIU guys (assuming they are legit) are standing over Gladney (on the ground) at the beginning, and one of them looks like he just took a kick and missed, and lost his balance. Gladney looked like he was maybe roughed up a bit but not much more - although, by legal definition, when you approach someone and threaten them verbally it's assault, and when you touch them with intent to harm it's battery. So we would have to know the chain of events here to know who broke the law. In this kind of situation, usually each party accuses the other, and then the cops convince them both to drop charges, otherwise they're both going to court in criss-cross actions. Makes lawyers happy, but rarely anyone else.

My point upthread is that I hope we can call an asshole an asshole, regardless of who s/he votes for. I also hope not to hear progressives making excuses for assault and battery, regardless of resulting injuries or not. I make no accusation here. Just sayin'.

Politics makes people emotional, and some people get physical with it. Happens on right and left, and whoever does it, should be called out on it without the cynicism of trying to make political hay from it.

[drm604]

17. I didn't see that.

I couldn't tell who was who, and I didn't see any obvious "ganging up".

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. I see a guy in a purple SEIU shirt laying on the ground and being kicked

He gets up and is holding his shoulder, looks like he is in pain.

Then I see Gladney, who doesn't appear to be injured, complaining that he was attacked. He flags down the cops and tells them he was attacked. And he never appears injured in the entire video. Certainly not injured enough to need a wheelchair the next day, and to be too weak to talk.

When you consider the fact that he lied about not having insurance and fraudulently collected money for medical expenses, it isn't a stretch to conclude he is lying about being attacked.

[slampoet]

15. I think you might be saying he is the person on the ground in the video.

He is not.

[drm604]

3. His website is currently down.

But the Google cache is available here: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:ybZYl2iMz0wJ:iamkennethgladney.com/+site:iamkennethgladney.com&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Now this is rich

Kenneth subscribes to no particular political party. He prefers to think of himself as an independent. He is calling on the SEIU, Representative Carnahan, and President Obama to condemn the racist, violent actions of these union members.

How the hell is the president responsible for Gladney's supposed beating? LOL

[drm604]

5. That domain was registered quickly.

If you look here: http://whois.domaintools.com/iamkennethgladney.com
you'll see that iamkennethgladney.com was registered on August 10, four days after the incident.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. There is much to suspect in this story

And kudos to St Louis activists who have stayed on top of this. Sadly, the media has failed to give Gladney the attention he truly deserves.

[drm604]

11. They don't really expect Obama to speak out about it at all.

In fact, they'd probably be disappointed if he did. The whole point is to make a big stink asking why he won't condemn it.

[drm604]

6. Is he collecting funds legally?

Gladney has a Paypal donation button at the bottom of the page at iamkennethgladney.com, or at least he did when the page was still up.

This blog has some interesting things to say about that: http://kid-kidfunkadelic.blogspot.com/2009/08/oh-my-god-they-killed-kenny-you-bastard.html

What they're claiming is that Gladney may be in violation of charity laws. Specifically, the Missouri statute which says

407.462. 1. No charitable organization shall solicit funds in this state, nor employ a professional fund-raiser to solicit funds in this state, for any charitable purpose, unless it has filed with the office of the attorney general an initial registration, which shall be sworn to under oath and shall be in the form and manner prescribed by the attorney general, except that charitable organizations in existence and soliciting on May 1, 1986, may file such initial registration within one year of May 1, 1986. All initial registrations, and amendments thereto, shall be accompanied by a filing fee of fifteen dollars unless the attorney general, by rule, establishes a different filing fee. Amendments to initial registrations shall be filed as prescribed by the attorney general.

This blogger states that the Missouri Attorney General's website does not show a registered charity for either Gladney or Project Libery.

To be fair, there may be a time lag between the registration of a charity and it's showing up in the online list, but if it wasn't registered properly that may explain why the website has been taken down.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. How can a man who has insurance be considered a charity??