Dit. Tama. Cette. Diese. Questo. Este. Detta. Acest. Tento.
Any way you choose to say it, it all means the same.
The number 10.
In my continuing effort to make sure that you, the reader, the listeners or those brothers and sisters in arms in Putnam County, are fully informed of the story telling that The Publisher likes to tell over at Putnam(redacted).com, I bring to you EtP10. In a continued effort of yellow journalism, The Publisher has once again “created” a story out of nothing. Once again, he attacks Mayor Edwards, accusing his “staff” of planting political signs for the Mayor’s reelection campaign in The Publishers yard. I present to you;
“Here’s Your Sign.”
As always lets begin with the title of his attack piece.
Edwards Campaign Harasses Critics Again
Right off the bat, he accuses.
Signs Placed In Front Of Home Without Permission
The byline. Even though you eventually come to find out that The Publisher says that he doesn’t blame the Mayor for personally putting signs up in The Publisher’s yard, he leads you to believe such. This is bait and switch.
During his 2007 campaign for mayor, Scott D. Edwards chose to campaign on a Hurricane street corner across the street from the employer of this publisher’s wife. This publisher has been one of Edwards’ strongest critics, citing his anti-family and anti-jobs stance that hurts the City of Hurricane and Putnam County.
Wow. I think I just heard a hamstring snap as he reached for that first statement. The Publisher accuses Edwards of picking a spot specifically because The Publishers wife worked in a building across the street? I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.
First of all, while chatting up the mayor in casual conversation over cheeseburgers and a Pepsi (note: that’s what I was having when I wrote him an email, I have no clue what he was having), I got the impression Mr. Edwards had no idea that The Publisher’s wife was working in any building on any of the street corners he chose to do his hand waving and hello’s. As any smart, intelligent, politically oriented candidate would do, he chose his spots strategically. Highest traffic flow gets you to wave that hand and say hello more which translates into “impressions”. It’s the smart thing to do. Edwards did not choose a street corner based on a critic or where that critic’s wife works. End of story.
All this is, is an attempt to once again for this critic, The Publisher, to try and sully the name of a candidate, The Mayor, just because his panties are still in a bunch about Walmart. It’s all about Walmart. “Edwards is anti family…” because he brought in a Walmart. “Edwards is anti jobs…” because he brought on a Walmart.
Shortly after he was elected, in a tainted election, while this publisher was working in South Carolina, a City of Hurricane inspector cited this publisher’s pregnant wife for weeds on a hillside behind our home. Edwards’ business, Netranom Communications, (the Old Town Hall building) and the current Hurricane City Hall had tall weeds, but they weren’t cited. City inspectors have repeatedly refused to cite Edwards for the issues at the Netranom building. It’s part of Edwards’ double standard and dirty politics.
Tainted election? There has never been proof of this. It was a sore losers late attempt to try and change the minds of those that had already spoken though the ballots. Sam Cole lost in a close election and he didn’t even care until someone started to whisper in his ears about “rigged elections” and “unsafe ballots” or some other hooha. Could it have been Mark Halburn? An obvious critic of Mayor Edwards that was doing the whispering through his opinionated web site? I’ll let you be the judge. Never mind the fact Cole had a solid recount done with the same results. You can count 100 times and nothing was going to change.
As for the weeds part of this yellow journalism piece? Oooops. There goes the other hammy! Seriously? Is there any proof that his second wife was ticketed for tall weeds? Any proof at all? Do they really enforce that statute anymore? Oh, wait. Weeds at a computer business as well, no ticket there? Oh, ok. So basically we have another untruth out there, tossed up like a softball by The Publisher. Excuse me while I take a swing here. He takes a picture of tall weeds in behind the City Hall building and tries to sell that (with no proof) as to have been taken in 2007? I call dirty journalism.
::bat crack::
I will say this though. Don’t be a stooge, Mr. Publisher. Cut your damn grass if you are looking to make an impression to sell that double wide.
So when Edwards’ re-election campaign signs showed up in the grass in front of our home, Thursday, May 12th, 2011, we weren’t surprised. Edwards says he didn’t do it. We believe him. However, we don’t believe he didn’t know a supporter was putting them there. And despite Edwards assertion that the culprit will be prosecuted, more than 24 hours after the trespassing and malicious mischief occurred (I decided to leave all his spelling mistakes and grammatical errors…that‘s not me), no one from the Hurricane Police Department had fingerprinted the signs. Chief of Police W. “Mike” Mullins hung up on this publisher when he was asked why the signs were not fingerprinted and why the Walmart surveillance video had not been viewed.
Oh my. There are so many things in this little paragraph that just tickle me pink. He totally believes his lie and thus herein lies the crux of my expose’ in this article. It is my belief that Mark Halburn aka The Publisher, did in fact steal signs from various places about the city of Hurricane and deliberately destroyed them to “create” a story to put Mayor Edwards in a negative light.
When asked about the accusation, Mayor Edwards responded with the following quote; “ Me nor my people did this — not sure who did. He emailed me and said he was out of town and demanded 1 trillion dollars per sign per day for yard space rent.”
Yep. You heard that right. One trillion. I have to wonder if Mark sat there laughing manically, his pinky finger resting at the corner of his mouth when he wrote up that email to Mayor Edwards?
Oh yeah, you want to see the entire email The Publisher sent Mayor Edwards? I thought ya might;
“For the second campaign in a row, you have chosen to harass my wife. Last time you campaigned in front of her employer. Today, while I am out of town, she awoke to find TWO of your campaign signs in our front yard. Since these were UNAUTHORIZED, the overnight space rental fee is $1 TRILLION per sign. Yes, I WILL be making this public as just your latest unethical conduct! How do you sleep at night? The payment is due IMMEDIATELY at the City National Branch, in Hurricane! Mark.”
I giggled. Seriously. Until I laughed. Is this guy crazy? Wait!
Don’t answer that.
When I talked to Mayor Edwards a few days later about the missing signs he stated that he had been told a few signs were missing. To quote; “Well, they were stolen from what appears to be random locations… Some in subdivisions and some on main roads.”
I agree that the culprit be prosecuted. Go ahead and look at any Walmart footage. It’s not going to show anything than an empty parking lot and a few cars rolling up and down Progress Way. As far as the finger printing goes, yeah, do that too. It will find that Mark’s greasy little paw marks are all over them in specific places, not just from “uprooting” them from his yard and crunching them in a barrel to take pictures of the offending signs. The Publisher could be nailed with theft of property, burglary and destruction of said property. Who knows, if he stole enough of the signs and it’s proven he did, then it could be a felony. There’s a hell of an add to the ole rap sheet for ya. No wonder Mullins hung up on his ass. Oh yeah. Can I answer the question of “How do you sleep at night?” for the Mayor? Thanks. Like a hard working Mayor.
::bling smile and a thumbs up!::
We removed the signs and placed them in a more appropriate location. Edwards was sent a bill for the space rental for the time that the signs were in the grass. Naturally, Edwards hasn’t paid the bill. He sent the following email:
“Thank you for letting me know that there were some of my campaign signs in your yard. If they are still on your property, I will be glad to come and get them, but I do want you to know that I did not place them there. Actually, I noticed numerous signs of mine had been moved to different locations last night. I was out until midnight, so it had to have taken place between midnight and 7 am, which is when I noticed the others that were moved. If it happens again, please let me know and I will remove immediately.”
The “appropriate location” was a garbage bin. First off, if The Publisher was any kind of decent human being and this was indeed a prank by someone knowing how much of a critic he is to Edwards, he would have called and said “I have your signs, come get them or I will bring them in. They are not supposed to be on my lawn.” I would not have deliberately broken the law and destroyed them and then taken photographic proof of this.
As far as Mr. Edwards paying the bill? Well, a collection has been started and the office is up to $6.75 in coins and dollars. We here at a State Of Mind have started a matching collection of $6.75 in Pepsi cans so we are well on our way to paying off this two trillion dollar debt. That’s a lot more than the liberal Publisher’s current leaders administration has saved up towards it’s trillion dollar debt.
As for Mayor Edwards going out of his way to respond, it’s a lot more than he needed to do. He was polite and apologetic about this happening and has not once accused Mark of any wrong doing. I have and I will stick to it. What surprises me is The Publisher didn’t burn these signs. He is a suspected firebug after all.
So far, Edwards has not picked up the signs for fingerprinting despite a request to do so.
So here it ends. Number ten. A decology, thus far, of Exposing the Publisher. The Publisher wants the police to investigate, finger prints to be taken, signs to be picked up and trillions of dollars to be deposited into his account. Huh. I just realized we can add extortion to the charges in this little episode (temper tantrum?) by The Publisher. I bet no one thought of that yet, did they. Especially The Publisher.
One final note. The Publisher posted a photo of a supposed Mayor giving a photographer the middle finger. I chose not to repost that. But I did come up with something of my own to cap off this expose, if you will. I call it a three finger book for The Publisher to read.
I just hope he can read between the lines.