As the hours dwindle down to election day, the river of lies coming from incumbent politicians threatens to overflow the floodwall of truth. The incumbents have the financial backing to buy newspaper space and radio time to make last minute claims that there is not enough time to refute. Teresa Mollette has analyzed a claim by Solicitor Kuhn and shown it to be preposterous. She reports that Kuhn claims to have prosecuted over 13,000 criminals in 2006. That averages out to the prosecution of 54 criminals a day. Of course, Portsmouth does have a high crime rate for a city its size and has lots of criminals, including the un-indicted ones who control the city. But that Kuhn prosecuted 54 criminals each workday is hard to believe, given the limited amount of time his usual workday consists of.Kuhn is living an elaborate lie right to the conclusion of his campaign, pretending to be someone other than who he really is. His current campaign charade is designed to hide his dishonesty and incompetency and to hide the fact that he puts about as much stock in the oath of office as he does in the marriage vow. A number of Republicans know what he is like in his political and private life and are not going to vote for him. But less sophisticated voters who are being bombarded by billboards, radio ads, and mail flyers may be taken in by his lies. If money buys elections, Kuhn has purchased himself, or his replacement, four more years in office.
But it is Second Ward councilman David Malone who takes the cake when it comes to hypocrisy. This so-called man of god stood on the steps of the Municipal Building in June of 2005, denouncing the nameless forces of evil that were hovering over Portsmouth. He didn’t name them, of course, because he is the adulterous tool of the crooks who control Portsmouth and in particular of real-estate predator Neal Hatcher. So why would he name them? I captured on tape Malone’s performance, as well as his wife parading at the foot the stairs talking in tongues in a documentary Recall, which is available at the Portsmouth Public Library and the Shawnee State library.
This hypocritical minister of the gospel was not only betraying the people of Portsmouth on the City Council, he was also carrying on an affair with a female employee of the Portsmouth Municipal Housing Authority, the same public agency where his wife works. Underemployed males who have trouble finding real jobs find it helps to have wives who work for in the public sector. There is an adage “Don’t get involved sexually with people you work with.” It needs to be amended for Rev. Malone: “Don’t get involved sexually with people your wife works with in the public sector, not unless you want to jeopardize your main source of income.” His affair, or affairs, is not only a violation of a Commandment of the religious faith Malone claims to believe in, it is also not good for family values, any more than it is good for family values for a so-called moral crusader and gay-bashing senator like Larry Craig, of Idaho, to go cruising in men’s rooms for sex. Just as the hypocritical Craig, the cruiser of men’s rooms, stood in the Senate and denounced homosexuals, Malone stood on the steps of city hall and denounced the nameless evil-doers of Portsmouth, at the same time that as councilman he was serving the interests of the nameless evil doers.
Malone’s last-minute letter-to-the-editor that appeared in the PDT on 3 Nov. 2007, was another lie because Malone did not write it, any more than Timothy Loper wrote the letters-to-the-editor that have appeared in the PDT in the last year. Loper’s last letter was a lofty pronouncement on the evils of drinking and driving, something he can speak with authority on given his record for drunk driving. The way people write is almost as unique as fingerprints. Malone, like Loper, has an individual style of writing, if “style” is interpreted very loosely. I have read Malone’s writing. Loper is barely literate; Malone is literate, but he writes in tongues. Malone is a tool of those who control the city, and he will vote as they wish. He will also write as they dictate, literally. I know what Malone writes like. Just as most people can tell one voice from another, someone who has taught composition for forty years, fifteen of them in Portsmouth, can tell when someone tries to pass off as their own letters that were written, or dictated by someone else. And the Portsmouth Daily Times will publish them two days before the election, giving them, or the crooks they work for, the last word.
The Predator and the Preacher
Malone is especially useful to Hatcher. Malone signs are visible on Hatcher’s empty lots throughout the city. But Malone alone, of all the incumbents, has the privilege of having his campaign signs on Hatcher’s mansion-office on Gay St. I recall the City Council Meeting at which Hatcher showed up with some smoke-and-mirror architectural designs for the renovation of the so-called Adelphia building. Malone’s wife was there to help Hatcher display the designs, presumably on a volunteer basis, for certainly an employee of the Portsmouth Municipal Housing Authority would not be assigned to help Hatcher promote the Adelphia building scam. Would she?
“How dare he even attempt to question the integrity and legitimacy of my livelihood!” Malone said that about Lee Scott’s disparaging of his professional qualifications to be a minister or his limitations as a breadwinner. If you believe Malone wrote the sentence, “How dare he even attempt to question the integrity and legitimacy of my livelihood!” you probably believe that our dyslexic president actually writes his speeches. The only person I can think of who would sound right uttering that sentence would be the late actress Betty Davis. Look at it once more: “How dare he even attempt to question the integrity and legitimacy of my livelihood!” Oh, the moral outrage, the indignation, and this from our hypocritical adulterous councilman who carried on with a woman who not only worked with his wife at the PMHA but was also a member of his congregation. The truth is Malone’s wife is the breadwinner in the family; Malone is the sinner. If she speaks in tongues, he lies in tongues.
Malone wrote that “Scott’s comment on the idea I would be in favor of an income-tax increase really is not an issue.” It is not an issue that a member of City Council is in favor of raising income taxes and said so at a public forum that was reported on in the Daily Times? That is not an issue? Whoever wrote the letter tries to cover up for Malone by saying it is not relevant. Malone’s statement to the League of Women forum was one of those statements that Malone sometimes makes when he has to speak in public without a prepared script and then tries to deny afterwards.
By far the most biggest lie Malone wrote in his letter, or somebody wrote for him, is in regard to the Marting Scam. After saying he had not been in favor of the purchase of the Marting building, Malone, or his letter writer, wrote: “But the other party involved in the deal came back to the city and said, ‘OK, let us make it right. We will give you another $500,000 for the pain and suffering caused you.’ Believe me, any successful corporation, intelligent businessman or the common citizen would accept that offer.” Doesn’t Malone, or Hatcher or Kuhn or whoever wrote his letter understand there are minutes of the Council meetings and that no one representing “the other party involved,” to use his euphemism, ever came back and said anything about making up for “the pain and suffering we have caused you”? What the so-called “other party,” that is Clayton Johnson, actually did was stick it to the city and the taxpayers a second time and got a full pardon for any crimes the Marting Foundation may have committed the first time around. The “other party,” that is Clayton Johnson, is not giving anybody anything. That money was stolen from the taxpayers, and then when the sale was invalidated by the courts, the other party set up a number of conditions by which the city could get some of the money back. Why didn’t “the other party” simply give back all the money he had stolen? Attorney Bender, representing “the other party,” came before the Council and said one of the reasons the Marting Foundation would not give the money back was because the city government could not be trusted with it. And with councilmen as clueless as David Malone, who is to say Bender was not right. Not having done his homework or attended the rump meeting that takes place prior to the regular meeting, Malone comes to some Council meetings unsure of how he is supposed to vote. He waits to see how Marty Mohr or Howard Baughman vote. And if Hatcher has his way, this is the councilman who will be representing the Second Ward for another four years.
