Correction and coming attractions

Without further ado, let me add a necessary and timely correction concerning the loony tune Elvis impersonator I mentioned in my last post. He turned out to be totally innocent and all charges were dropped. Nah, go on... you mean law enforcement can MAKE MISTAKES? (((shock)))

From the Chicago Tribune:

U.S. prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a state judge, according to court documents.

The surprise decision came hours after Paul Kevin Curtis was released from a Mississippi jail on bond.

Prosecutors said the "ongoing investigation has revealed new information," but provided no additional details, according to the court order dismissing the charges.

Curtis told reporters he respected Obama. "I would never do anything to pose a threat to him or any other U.S. official," he said. "I love this country."

He said he had no idea what ricin was. "I thought they said 'rice,' I told them I don't eat rice," he said.

Curtis, who is 45 and known in Mississippi as an Elvis impersonator, had been released from jail on bond earlier on Tuesday after a judge indefinitely postponed a court hearing on his detention. The case was later dismissed "without prejudice," meaning the charges could be potentially reinstated if warranted.

Later on Tuesday federal law enforcement officials searched the house of a second Mississippi man, Everett Dutschke, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson told Reuters.

It was not clear if the search was related to the ricin case.

A representative for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oxford, Mississippi, did not return calls for comment.

Dutschke is "cooperating fully" with the FBI, his attorney Lori Nail Basham told the Northeastern Mississippi Daily Journal. Dutschke has not been charged in the ricin case, she said.

Basham said Dutschke and Curtis were acquaintances and believed the two men had known each other for several years.

Deborah Madden, an FBI spokeswoman in Jackson, Mississippi, declined to comment. Phone calls to a number listed for Dutschke and his attorney went unanswered.

In 2007, Dutschke ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate against Stephen Holland, an incumbent Democratic state representative from the Tupelo area. Holland's mother, Sadie, is the judge to whom one of the ricin-tainted letters was mailed this month.

During the state campaign Dutschke produced a video titled "The Aliens are Coming," attacking his opponent for being soft on immigration, which stated that Holland was a "friend" of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

LAWYER SAYS CURTIS WAS FRAMED

Christi McCoy, Curtis's attorney, told CNN she believed her client had been framed.

"I do believe that someone who was familiar and is familiar with Kevin just simply took his personal information and did this to him," McCoy told CNN. "It is absolutely horrific that someone would do this."

Curtis was arrested on April 17 at his home in Corinth, Mississippi. He was charged with mailing letters to Obama, Republican U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Sadie Holland containing a substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin, a highly lethal poison made from castor beans.

The letters were intercepted by authorities before they reached their destinations. The poison scare put Washington on edge during the same week the Boston Marathon bombing occurred.

Over the weekend, investigators searched Curtis's home, his vehicle and his ex-wife's home, but failed to find any incriminating evidence, McCoy told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

In a statement last week, Curtis's family said they had not been shown any evidence of the charges against him. They said he suffers from a long history of mental illness.

Typewritten on yellow paper, the three letters contained the same eight-line message, according to an affidavit from the FBI and the Secret Service filed in court.

"Maybe I have your attention now / Even if that means someone must die," the letters read in part, according to the affidavit. The letters ended: "I am KC and I approve this message."

The initials "KC" led law enforcement officials to ask Wicker's staff if they were aware of any constituents with those initials, and the focus of the investigation then turned to Curtis, the affidavit said.

Also on Tuesday, a Pentagon spy agency said tests found no suspicious letters after an alert during a screening of incoming mail at a military base in Washington, D.C.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency had said security personnel detected a potentially harmful substance during routine screening of incoming mail at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, and initial tests indicated the presence of "possible biological toxins."

We are paying these people millions of dollars to protect us (and the president, too)... and THIS is the best they can do?

Damn pitiful.

~*~



Today on WOLI (Live at Five!), we will be continuing the discussion I started yesterday, which initially began with THIS SCARY ARTICLE (warnings galore) at the always-horrendous, anti-feminist website A Voice For Men. Here is the money quote:

While we’re on the subject of female-perpetuated sexual abuse, most surveys that ask college age women about the sexual abuse they perpetrate find a shocking levels of female-perpetrated sexual abuse. Other surveys find that men who perpetuate sexual abuse are also sexually abused, suggesting a cycle of sexual abuse on college campuses. Perhaps rather than being victims of an indifferent system these silent female rape victims–who are part of a culture of cyclical sexual abuse–fail to come forward to the authorities about their abuse because it would mean admitting that they also are rapists?

Really. It says that. Not making it up.

And it's by ... (ta dahhh!) Typhon Blue, aka Asha James, whom I have mentioned on this blog before (here and here). I am still amazed that a woman who seems to have such open contempt for circumcised men (even once calling their sexuality "crippled"--which is just reprehensible) has somehow ascended the throne as the major female Men's Rights Advocate. (Then again, when you can write a paragraph like the one above, it would seem that MRA-blogging is yours for the taking.) She now blogs at Genderratic, as well as The Good Men's Project (considerably lowering my opinion of the place--no link for you) and of course, the aforementioned A Voice For Men, wherein it seems (considering the name of the blog), that she has been promoted to the status of honorary male. I'm sure that makes her ecstatic. It is not surprising I was once certain she had to be a man... because truthfully, I don't even know any fundamentalist conservative women who suck up to men half as much as she does.

Her views over the years that I have followed her, have not changed in the least, except to become even more conservative and male-identified, if that is possible. Asha's already-advanced Queen Bee Syndrome has flourished and grown by leaps and bounds. She is running the joint, folks. You can just FEEL the preening, all the way through the computer screen.

Here are some of my favorite greatest hits from Asha, from bygone days.

Asha's dating advice:

Men, grow a pair and stop approaching western women entirely. Don’t even bother. It’s what they (obviously) want and the best you’re likely to get from the experience is a night of very bad sex and if you’re really unlucky either a rape accusation or a bill for child support or if you’re really, really unlucky, she’ll rape you herself and then accuse you of rape and/or sue for child support.

As I said, you can't make it up.

Asha has an epiphany:

There’s so much concern for men manipulating women into having sex with them yet there seems to be very little for women manipulating men into long term relationships. (This doesn’t mean I concede the whole ‘women want more long term relationships then men’. In fact I think this is because women tend to go after men who have the most to loose [sic] from marriage and these men are reluctant to get married because… well… they have a lot to loose.[sic])

There’s even a whole vocabulary of shame for men who don’t want to be manipulated in said way.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where there’s a whole vocabulary of shaming tactics for manipulating women into doing what men want them to do.

Asha lives is Canada, so maybe she has never heard the words whore, slut, cunt, floozy, strumpet, loose-woman, trollop, harlot, streetwalker, bitch, tramp, nympho, hussy, ho, skank, hooker, pig, harpy, etc etc etc... but I somehow doubt it. (Or are they incredibly moral in Canada? I know they don't own any guns!)

Apparently, she thinks all of these insults come from other women, instead of men trying to control the behavior of women. But hey, check this:

I asked a male friend how many women he’s been with that made an effort to please him physically and he said, out of about 20, he’s been with 2 women that made the effort.

Wow, what bitches!

And in case you aren't sorry enough for the guys:

I read an article about a survey that found men actually become depressed looking at extremely hot models and actresses.

Because they know they can’t have them.

Poor fellas! Such oppression! (((weeps)))

And it just gets better! The Men's Rights Reddit (I DO have limits, and will not link to a sewer) is filled with Bizarro World comments exactly like this. And Asha holds forth as the Queen (Bee) of Men's Rights. So if you wanna go hang out there, you've been warned.

We will be rejoining the rape topic on the air today, so stay tuned.

~*~

EDIT 4/27/13: I have been informed that Typhon Blue/Asha James is no longer writing for The Good Men Project, so please accept my copious apologies (and there is the link to TGMP I did not provide above). Thanks.

EDIT 12/2013: Typhon Blue/Asha James is also known as Alison Tieman, the name she prefers as of late 2013. (Tag has been changed.)