Sunday, July 29, 2007

Stop the Madhouse!

Another Breezy Sunday Book Review

By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times

Filed 7.29. 07

JACKSON, Wyo – He’s been called a “cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes,” or as one White House spokesman reportedly said it best, “We hate that sonovabitch.”

If you don’t know who Greg Palast is then it’s time you woke up and realized you can’t afford to still be sleeping while there’s a former corporate fraud investigator dropping juicy bombshells in his latest book “Armed Madhouse.”

From stuffed shirts to James Baker’s desk drawers, corrupt executives and shadowy political rainmakers fear what Britain’s Guardian newspaper calls “investigations up there with Woodward and Bernstein — and a lot funnier.”

While Palast’s Jack Anderson-inspired mudraking exposes make The New York Times’ best-seller lists, ironically you won’t find his well-researched and highly polished
screeds there — despite the red-hot following of nearly two million readers of his Web column.

Reading “Armed Madhouse” indicated just how much the mainstream news establishment has been steadily sedating us with either the flashy “Big Story” or fluffy celebrity trivia — including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Olbermann, FOX and Meet the Press.

Why don’t A-list reporters dig in and follow up on the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' investigation into well-founded allegations of electoral fraud?

Friday, July 27, 2007

Gierau Prosecution Raises Ethical Conflicts

BREAKING!

Legal hot potato tossed to Fremont County prosecutor

By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times



Filed 7.27.07

JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) – A local prosecutor has asked Fremont County’s prosecuting attorney to assume the case of former Wyoming Democratic Party Chairman Mike Gierau who allegedly drove under the influence of alcohol in March.

Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman, a Republican, said last week that when Gierau was a local county commissioner he recommended Weichman for his current post.

Weichman, since reelected, was appointed after current 9th Circuit Judge Timothy C. Day left his old job as county prosecuting attorney for private practice in 1996.

“If the resolution of (Gierau’s) case is perceived to be a sweetheart deal,” Weichman said recently, “there would be at least the appearance that I owed him.”
For More, check out NewWest.net

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

How Much Does the Public Have a Right to Know?

Meditations on Secrecy

Should JHMR still cough up that old engineer's report?

The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times Editorial Board

Filed 7.25.07

With a regularity approaching tyranny, the Center for Public Integrity recently expanded its litany of “Fs” Wyoming has received for transparency in government.

This time, it was the Wyoming Supreme Court and the office of the Cowboy state’s centrist democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal, who got the low marks, according to the editorial "Another 'F' for Wyoming" by veteran capitol beat reporter Joan Barron of the Casper Star-Tribune.

Last month, in an
editorial calling for Vice-President Dick Cheney to resign, we theorized that the Veep’s obsessive penchant for secrecy and disdain for the meddling press was a byproduct of his having cut his political teeth in Wyoming.

Then again, it could just be that because the Veep thinks 9/11 turned America into Rome that means he gets to be Ceasar without the cool ass Laurence Olivieresque haircut.


Photo captions & credits: "Sir Laurence Olivier as 'Hamlet' discussing pressing world and metaphysical affairs with Sir Richard 'Dick' Cheney" courtsey of Allposters.com

Monday, July 23, 2007

Officials Rule Man's Strange Death "Accidental"

By GIL BRADY
Casper Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 7.22.07

JACKSON, Wyo. – Sheriff’s investigators have closed the tricky case of a 24-year-old man found dead here in a cold creek over two miles downstream after a security camera captured him leaving a local saloon alone and intoxicated well past midnight last May.

During a convoluted two-month-long investigation -- where officials initially suspected foul play and released incriminating information they later recanted -- Jonathan Koberna’s death May 23 has now officially been ruled an accidental drowning “after hypothermia and paradoxical undressing,” Det.-Sgt. Slade Ross of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

On May 24, a guest at the Wagon Wheel motel, near the saloon Koberna was last seen drinking heavily with friends and leaving, stumbling but alive, found the Utah native’s cell phone, wallet, keys and still-tied shoes side by side, pointing toward the water. The personal items lay near a bench some 2.2 miles upstream from where Koberna’s body was found at about 1 p.m. by a man walking his dog along the Russ Garaman trail, behind Elk Run Townhomes, the previous day.

Ross said Koberna’s unzipped jacket was also found partially afloat in still waters near his shoes and cell phone on the grassy bank after probably getting “caught in an eddy”.
Photo caption & credit: "Johnathan Koberna, age 23" courtesy of The Koberna family.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Full Sniper Story Still MIA

By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times

Filed 7.18.07

JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) -- The doubly tragic saga of a National Guardsman and former Army sniper who killed himself after allegedly murdering his ex-wife at a Cheyenne nightclub last week has taken up lots of news ink and airtime on national broadcasts.

And while the story merits much of the coverage it's getting, none of it so far has probed very hard the “whys” of David Munis' apparent killing spree -- instead focusing, as so many of these stories do at their start, on the sensational: the shooting, macabre descriptions of the crime scene, vacuous interviews with a band member who knew Robin Munis, but only superficially, and the manhunt that resulted in authorities finding Munis dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Turning a Blind Eye to Reality

A freely available OPINION

By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times

Filed 7-16-07

JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) -- It would be nice to believe the “I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s all get along” rose-tinted view of immigration and bootstraps entrepreneurship as recently portrayed by a certain local alternative weekly.

Unfortunately, reality is a bitch. And a tough one, apparently, to report on.

In a breathlessly Pollyannish assertion, devoid of any recent legal history or nuance, the periodical,
Planet Jackson Hole, reported: “But things have changed. In the past decade, a river of immigrants mostly from Mexico and Colombia has washed over the formerly homogeneous valley, helping to support Jackson Hole’s booming service and tourist-based economy.”

In all that washing and rinsing, the Planet certainly got one thing right: Jackson Hole’s demography has changed dramatically over the last ten years.
As has its violent crime profile.

(Click & read on courtesy of NewWest.net)

Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Valley's Affordable Housing Feud Headed for Court

By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Times & on-line reports


Filed 7.11.07


JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) - As many long-time Jackson Hole public servants, nurses and low-income workers know, affordable housing in The Valley is spiraling out of control.

Many workers who provide essential emergency and service-industry related labor have had to make their homes in satellite towns well outside the county--creating commute times that in theory could jeopardize lives and the local economy in the event of a disaster.

Recently, Jackson attorney Peter Moyer filed a lawsuit accusing the Teton County Housing Authority of illegally meeting to approve in secret the $2.1 million purchase of 5.2-acres of land in the Cheney neighborhood in the exclusive and tony West Bank area off the Moose-Wilson Road.

Moyer alleges the deal was struck in violation of the state's open meetings law.

The landowner's attorney, Andrea Richard, filed a counterclaim to Moyer’s suit demanding that her client be compensated for damages and attorney fees.

In the meantime, the Housing Authority has announced it's moving ahead on the deal and vowed to file its own suit, seeking answers to issues raised by Moyer.

For more on the claptrap and controversy, click here to read Planet Jackson Hole's up close and personal look at the "N(not)I(in) M(my) By(backyard)" Cheney area residents who stand to be impacted by the plan.

And here, to read the Jackson Hole News&Guide's scorecard on the ongoing legal drama.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Vote! Or die despite it, Sucker!

A freely available OPINION

By The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times Editorial Board


A recent high-profile book review got us thinking about voters, voting and what’s left of democracy.

Or as one of our brothers now says: "If everybody's right, then no one's left!"

Well, sort of. Let's true that up some, homes.

Perhaps, if we had read the damn book, instead of pretending, like some fawned over cocktail party dilettante, maybe we could sort out what we think, we think we know from what "is known" to be true, and right and so evenhandedly brilliant you could respect us in the morning for our wise assertions in this essay instead of our offhanded discursiveness.

Regardless, the reported thesis, as summarized by The New Yorker, that legendary, soul-searching juggernaut of elite, east coast townhouse pretenses, alleges “too much voter participation is a bad thing.”

Further, this well-rumored to be audacious new book is said to say that the “average voter is not held in much esteem by economists and political scientists”.

If you’re like us, you’re probably saying by now: “Well, screw you, snobby egghead pants, who didn’t know that? Who cares?”

I guess the simple answer is, maybe we all should.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Police tighten noose around 23-year-old "murder"

Does this man live in your county?


By GIL BRADY
Casper Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 7.7.07
(Click on image to enlarge)

JACKSON – Officials have released the sketch of a man they believe was involved in the killing of Lisa Ehlers of Jackson on June 21, 1984.


Asked Thursday whether the unnamed man depicted in the 21-year-old image lived in Sublette or Teton counties, Sublette County sheriff’s Detective-Sgt. K.C. Lehr said it was “unknown” if the suspect had ever resided, then or now, in “either county”.


(Click & Read on courtesy of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Photo Caption & Credits: "1986 composite sketch of Lisa Ehlers' murder suspect," courtesy of the Sublette County Sheriff's Office

Click Here for---->"Probe Produces New Leads" for photos and in-depth analysis on the deaths of Lisa Ehlers, Jon Rice and Eric Cooper.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Feds Bust Alta Couple for Allegedly Dealing Dope in Montana

Couple & baby appear in federal court

By GIL BRADY

The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times

Filed 7.05.07


JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) -- As a grandmother sat cradling their baby in her arms, an Alta couple in shackles and blue prison jumpers kissed one another before U.S. Marshals whisked them back to jail following their initial court appearances Tuesday before a federal judge in Jackson.

Tania Longtin, 32, and Jamie Alan Cordell, 33, recently indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring to deal 500 grams of methamphetamine in Montana, are charged with three federal crimes: two counts of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and one count of knowingly intending to distribute a substance containing methamphetamine.