Pat's DUI staffer Keeter runs Gaston GOP convention

It seems Republican Congressional candidate Lance Sigmon can go fuck himself, at least as far as Gaston County Republicans are concerned.

What else was the GOP thinking to have the deputy district director for one candidate run a convention that is allegedly for the entire party:

Here are a few 'graphs from the Gaston Gazette coverage:

Four Republican candidates for governor - Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, state Sen. Fred Smith, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr and Salisbury attorney Bill Graham - spoke first during Saturday's breakfast and then quickly departed for the Mecklenburg County GOP Convention in Charlotte.

. . .

Convention Chairman Brett Keeter said the attendance Saturday was better than past conventions of the Gaston GOP and that's a good sign during a heated presidential race.

Writer Daniel Jackson needs to talk to his sports staff about how not to drink the subject's koolaid when covering the news. Brett Keeter has been in their own paper for several months for getting suspended as McHorny's Deputy District Director for his September DUI arrest and February guilty plea.

Not only is it weird to write Brett Keeter's name as if his DUI wasn't fairly recent news, it's completely illegitimate reporting not to mention Keeter is a high-level (and well-paid) McHenry staffer (or staffer on suspension).

I've never heard of county conventions being run by either campaign or district staff of a Congressman, particularly the year of a contested election. 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler's District staffer Randy Flack had to step down from running for Buncombe County Democratic Party Chair because of the potential conflict of interest.

It looks like Pat McHorny doesn't care too much about conflicts of interest, potential or otherwise. He must have too much to hide.

McHenry Deputy District Director convicted of DUI, surrenders license

Thanks to Miss M at BlueNC:

Today, I made the trip to the Gaston County Court House to observe the conclusion to Mr. Keeter's DWI arrest. One funny bit, one defendant blew a .21 on the breathalyzer while driving a lawn mower, lol! While waiting on attorneys in other court rooms to appear in lowly traffic court, the judge announced an early break. I went to powder my nose, and went back to court to wait on the end of the break, and court was in session!?!?!? As I walked in I heard Brett Keeter and my ears perked up. The attorney went over the charges, and stated that Brett had completed assessment, rehab, and some community service. The attorney also stated that he had letters from an officer of a MADD chapter, Gaston Co. Sheriff Cloninger and someone he's working with at UNCC. I didn't catch the name or position of the person at UNCC. The judge remarked that you know who your friends are when you get a letter from them. The judge gave Brett 30 days suspended jail sentence, 1 year unsupervised probation and told to surrender his license. The fine was $25 + court costs. After this matter was concluded the judge told the district attorney he could complete the break that had been shortened, earlier.

A couple things that seemed a bit odd to me. One the shortened break, not that I'm a conspiracy theorist, but interrupting a break in court seems like an odd thing to do. As a jury member, a break has never been cut short, but that is the extent of my court time (knock on wood). I was looking at the post on Keeter's initial arrest, and he had a Gaston Co. attorney, Craig Collins. It seems to me that I heard the judge mention Collins as Keeter's current attorney, but I'm not totally sure about that. Why is this significant? Why doesn't a Gaston Co. attorney know how to pronounce the Gaston Co. Sheriff's name?? When Keeter's attorney mentioned the Sheriff's letter, he said his last name wrong. I know how the Sheriff pronounces it, because I was giving out name tags at the county convention and I had to ask him his name. Doh! :)

And that concludes my first attempt at court reporting. Enjoy.
MissM aka Jane

McHenry Deputy Director Keeter DUI court date today

I pulled post up from two months ago.

Ground hog day three days late.

Keeter is now scheduled for court 3B in the 8:30 session Feb 5. We'll see if he gets a sweetheart deal or even shows up at all.


KEETER,JAMES,BRETT GASTONIA ,NC
28054 Court date: 12/12/2007 Courtroom: 003B Session: AM Case Number: 2007CR014558 Citation Number: C8285970

5405 Traffic DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED 20-138.1
4477 Infraction FAIL TO DIM HEADLAMPS 20-181
9955 Traffic CIVIL REVOCATION DR LIC (30) 20-16.5

Keeter DUI postponed to February

Giving me more opportunities to post this lovely photo.

McHenry Deputy District Director Brett Keeter blew a point one three on Labor Day weekend and twice his court date has been rescheduled.

Mark your calendars for February 5, 2008, morning session. Room 3B.

Arraigned Offenses for Case Number: 2007014558 CR
Arraigned Defendant Name: KEETER, JAMES, BRETT
County: GASTON
Court Date: 02/05/2008
Session: AM
Court Room: 003B

Offense Code Description Statute
5405 Traffic DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED 20-138.1
4477 Infraction FAIL TO DIM HEADLAMPS 20-181
9955 Traffic CIVIL REVOCATION DR LIC (30) 20-16.5

Pat's deputy district director rehabilitates his reputation not

If I wanted to assure the public that my point one three DUI was an aberration, behaving this way and having my PHOTO TAKEN might not be my first choice.

Oh, but Brett Keeter probably drank himself this silly during his Pat-ordered two-week job suspension. My bad.

About Pat's very special "Peeps"

Yesterday I started a series called "Pat's Peeps." It's about all the people Pat McHenry has surrounded himself with in the years since he graduated from Belmont Abbey College. They're an "impressive" crowd, as you will see.



Start with Scott G. Stewart (top center) harasser of women, bilker of the elderly. He worked for the Interior Department. You'll remember Abramoff and Steven Griles, I'm sure who basically ruled there to the detriment of the country. Just like Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Stewart has taken inappropriate employment with a company that does a lot of "bidness" with said department, Shell Oil.

But even before Pat moved in with Scott in 2001, his dear alma mater, Belmont Abbey has an interesting history of hiring a sex offender and then lying about knowing he was a sex offender. George P. Berthold was hired in 1997 (right when Pat was there) to run it's Theology Department. According to the Boston Globe:

Donna M. Morrissey, the spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said that church officials in Boston had notified the college and the Diocese of Charlotte "verbally and in writing" that Berthold had been accused of inappropriate physical behavior with adult seminarians when he was dean of the undergraduate college at St. John's Seminary in 1995.

Morrissey said the notifications were made before the college in Belmont, N.C., hired Berthold.

Morrissey, however, refused to make public any of the notifications. And neither she nor the college would release a copy of the 1997 letter from Cardinal Bernard F. Law that, according to Belmont Abbey, said Berthold's record was unblemished.

Told of Morrissey's statement, the college spokeswoman, Teresa Sowers McKinney, insisted again that the college was told nothing about Berthold's misbehavior. She repeated her earlier statement that Belmont Abbey would not have hired Berthold if it had been made aware of the allegations.

According to Donnie Young, other major campaign peeps, Willliam Duffy and Bernard Sullivan, are under investigation by the the FBI [or perhaps the SBI?] for Medicaid fraud.

The North Carolina Conservative's Judson Cox, writes that Florida shooter* Jason Drake (middle left) worked for McHenry. I have sources tying McHenry to Drake's alleged victim and Republican dirty tricks operator, gay Ralph Gonzalez* (lower right).

Michael Aaron Lay (upper left), a former staffer and housemate got deferred a plea deal on voter fraud. Deputy Field Director Brett Keeter (upper right) blew a point one three over Labor Day (and got a pat on the wrist).

There's even more at the North Carolina Conservative.

So, we'll be keeping you informed on the kinds of people Patrick McHenry does business with.

As he says on his House-provided website:



Click to enlarge. It's a screengrab of the McHenry's "Issue Page" labeled Sanctity of Marriage.

*For those of you who didn't follow those links for the Florida Gonzalez/Abrami/Drake murder/suicide story's details, I'll just sum up the political end of things for you:

Gonzales (as Georgia Republican Party Executive Director) has close ties to Ralph Reed and the dirty tricks that defeated Senator Max Cleland in Georgia. Never forget they employed the confederate flag wedge issue hysteria. Never forget that Ralph Reed took over the Georgian Republican Party using Abramoff-forced Choctaw "donations."

And never forget that Abramoff knows all these guys. (Ever wonder why McHenry defends Charles Taylor so often and vehemently?)

Ralph Gonzalez also worked as now-Representative Tom Feeney's campaign manager who created a smear site against his Democratic opponent, Clint Curtis. Gonzalez was also Feeney's campaign manager when he ran for Florida state house to become it's speaker. He stayed on as a strategist and spokesman. There the ethics scandal involving influencing software purchases. He's tied to another indicted legislator, former Rep. Sheri McInvale.

And here's a new tidbit I hadn't seen before from political hotwire

When Gonzalez filed an annual report for Strategum with the State of Florida Division of Corporations in January, 2007, Schnick was listed as one of his business partners. (Note: Todd Schnick is a name that you might remember if you believe the 2000 presidential election was stolen, and that said theft occurred in Florida.)

The Company Pat Keeps

Check out the North Carolina Conservative's rundown of McHenry's close political allies, staffers and friends. Editor Judson Cox labels his piece "Judged by the company you keep."

[Thanks to Zombie Birdhouse for the awesome graphic.]

Pressure builds for Pat

If last week and the week before weren't bad enough for 10th District disgrace Pat McHenry, now a national and highly respected blogger Pam Spaulding has turned her internet attention to McHenry's involvement in the bizarrely underreported Florida murder suicide.

She's written the best overview yet and crossposted it at Americablog.

What with this last week's extreme DUI of his Deputy Field Director Brett Keeter. Then the subsequent two-week suspension without pay. But as MissM points out at BlueNC, why not wait until a verdict? Innocent until proven guilty and all that American patriotic stuff.

I wondered if a 31-year-old blows a point one three perhaps he should be fired. It's not like it's the first overindulgence of a young man, new to college or trying to recover from his first big break-up. But Robert P and lcloud at BlueNC make the find points that McHenry should be helping this guy get the therapy he needs. That we as democrats might want to practice what we preach and think in terms of rehabilitation. Good ideas, if we were dealing with people who could consider that others can change and improve. That, of course is the obvious solution. Just not likely.

Then, we have to look at the week before last, which might have led to this overindulgence of mind-altering substances in a staffer.

The week before last you learned that Pat might not live where he votes. That's potentially the fourth case voter fraud he's been tied to. And over the weekend, McHenry spokesman Aaron Latham tried to put that pesky old voter fraud/residency question to rest. Latham told the Gaston Gazette's Amanda Millard that Pat "lives in Cherryville. That's still his primary residence." But, he told her, McHenry splits his time between Cherryville and Hickory when he comes home on weekends. Boy, Pat, that's a lot of splitting. You live in DC, you split your weekend time between Cherryville and Hickory. You own the Hickory condo but your legal residence for voting is a house in Cherryville you don't own and that other people use. I wonder what the North Carolina laws regard as a legal residence. We'll have to find out.

And the one question still unanswered: how'd you get that financing for the Hickory condo. Since you're on the House banking committee, I think your banking deals (especially ones you've been trying to cover up) should be public record. After all, you were all excited about disclosing the people behind earmarks. What about disclosing the financing deal on an asset you haven't told anyone about. Because if the Hickory condo was your legal residence and as Latham told Millard, it's been this way for some time, you had plenty of time to update your bio and your website to say you live in Cherryville AND Hickory, not just Cherryville.

There are a lot of reports from the week before last that still have not been cleared up. Like Pat's involvement with recent murder victim Ralph Gonzalez of Florida and Georgia ethics issues (including ties to Jack Abramoff and vote manipulation. But the North Carolina Conservative told us that not only McHenry was also tied to Jason Drake, who police say was the shooter.

People have commented extensively on this website and elsewhere that Drake's ties to a gay porn murder in Pennsylvania have only one source. That source has a lot of people who hate him OR he's a lying, website-destroyer.

Either way, these questions are not dependent on tying Drake to other murders and the porn industry, are extremely relevant and remain unanswered:

1. What exactly are McHenry ties to high level murdered Republican dirty tricks consultant Ralph Gonzalez and of his alleged shooter Jason Robert Drake. And why has McHenry tried to hide his political past by stating on his website and official bio that he is either a real estate broker, a small businessman or in sales.
   


2. Why have the police given such premature and unprofessional comments to the media in this case?*


3. What is going on with the traditional media’s response to this news item. Google and see for yourself. Can you imagine them ignoring the murder of two prominent young gay Democratic operatives. Of course not.
   


4. Is the disinformation campaign about Drake initiated by a gay porn blogger or by McHenry's staff? The former makes not sense, the latter is sheer stupidity but IS muddying the waters somewhat. And is one more reason for questioning a traditional media's response. Who can ignore a story that includes a gay porn blogger? Come on.
   


5. Why have no media outlets in the 10th Congressional District will covered, much less done any research on this story.
   

*The police said August 23 that the murder/suicide was the result of a lover's triangle. On August 27 they told the Orlando Sentinel:

What prompted him to go in and commit that crime remains undetermined and may never be known," Picanzo said. "We have had so many different and conflicting statements from people.

Since when do the police say the crime motive will never been known this early in an investigation? It makes no sense.

Why not fire him, Pat?

Two week suspension? Why not fire Brett Keeter? He blew a point one three. That's not even close.

He's your field director, right? He's the guy you want people to turn to when you're not available. He's your personal representative to the people of the 10th district.

Could you explain to me exactly why he's now worth $55,000 a year of our money? In fall of 2004, you thought he was only worth $15,000 annually. Does he have something on you?

And look at this young man, your boy. He's scary. Fire him. He can live at your unoccupied condo in Hickory while he job hunts, if you feel sorry for him.

What with your problems with a former staffer pleading guilty for voter fraud, your friend Ralph Gonzalez being murdered allegedly by your other friend Jason Drake, your financial disclosure debacles and the ass you made of yourself nationally over earmarks, wouldn't it lighten the load to dump this one trouble-maker?

From Greg Flynn at BlueNC:

Citation Number: C8285970
Officer Name: SHELOR,M,K

Arraigned Offenses for Case Number: 2007014558 CR
Arraigned Defendant Name: KEETER,JAMES,BRETThttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
County: GASTON
Court Date: 10/10/2007
Session: AM
Court Room: 002A

5405 Traffic DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED 20-138.1
4477 Infraction FAIL TO DIM HEADLAMPS 20-181
9955 Traffic CIVIL REVOCATION DR LIC (30) 20-16.5

UPDATE: Thanks to Gordon at Scru Hoo for the Wikipedia blood alcohol link. By their chart, he had 7 drinks if he weighs 200 pounds. 6 drinks at 180, 5 at 160. Wouldn't you know you couldn't drive if you'd drunk that much?

UPDATE II: Looks like the North Carolina Young Republicans fired him. He's been a region IV director all year.

But now his name is gone.

Isn't it unusual for a deputy field director for a Congressman to be on the board of the Young Republicans anyway?

Two Young Republicans have told me that Brett's the one who pressured them to endorse Glenn Murphy for College Republicans National Committee chair.

They liked his opponent and Murphy already had one reported incident of unwanted sex act on a sleeping person (with his girlfriend in the room). Now, he's resigned over another similar incident.

Field Director Brett Keeter caught DUI

McHenry staff seems to have a DUI problem. Former chief of staff Jason Deans had a long list of driving infractions.

Now Pat has suspended his field director, Brett Keeter, for the same infraction, according to the Charlotte Observer's Lisa Zagaroli:

The deputy field director for U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., was charged early Sunday with driving while impaired by Gaston County police, his office said Tuesday.

Brett Keeter was suspended for two weeks without pay, McHenry's chief of staff Jon Causey said Wednesday, and he will be required to successfully complete alcohol education classes. He also has been ordered to perform community service with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Causey said.

I'm sure the mothers will be just thrilled.