Dogs Playing Poker and the Two Kings
O.K., I just wanted to try this YouTube deal. (This one's for John Yeager.)
Thursday, June 15, 2006
KEEP ON TRUCKIN'
State Land Commissioner Pat Lyons got some heat for his campaign pickup truck. (CLICK HERE, then scroll down to about the middle of the page.)
Now his Democratic opponent, Jim Baca, has a campaign truck of his own.
Now his Democratic opponent, Jim Baca, has a campaign truck of his own.
MELVIN AND HOWARD AND STUART
A lawyer I've known for nearly 20 years is representing Melvin Dummar in his new effort to win part of Howard Hughes' estate. Below is my quick account of the case in today's New Mexican. And here's a story that appeared in The Wall Street Journal. CLICK HERE
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2006
No, it’s not a remake of the 1980 movie Melvin and Howard. It’s real life.
A New Mexico lawyer, who used to practice in Santa Fe, is representing the Utah man who inspired that film in a new effort to win part of the late billionaire Howard Hughes’ fortune — $156 million.
Stuart Stein said Wednesday that new evidence has emerged to justify a new claim by Melvin Dummar.
Dummar, 61, contends that in 1967 he picked up a bloody and haggard man on a lonely Nevada road. The man, Dummar says, identified himself as Hughes. Dummar said he agreed to drive him to Las Vegas.
Dummar, a former gas station operator, originally made the claim following the eccentric billionaire’s death in 1976. In 1978 a jury in a Nevada probate court case determined that an alleged Hughes will, which named Dummar as a beneficiary, was not admissible in court.
The new lawsuit was filed this week in federal court. Dummar claims William Rice Lummis, a cousin of Hughes, and former Hughes executive Frank William Gay got witnesses to lie when they said Hughes never left the suite at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas, where the reclusive Hughes laid low for years.
The new suit cites new evidence uncovered by Gary Magnesen, a former FBI agent who wrote a book about Dummar's claim. In The Investigation, Magnesen said he spoke with Hughes' former pilot, Robert Deiro, who confirmed taking his boss to the Cottontail Ranch brothel at Lida Junction, Nev.
According to the new lawsuit, Deiro was sworn to secrecy while working for Hughes. But recently he came forward and said he took Hughes to the brothel one night late in December 1967. The pilot said he fell asleep and couldn't find Hughes after he woke up.
Dummar claims he found Hughes t when he pulled off on a dirt road to relieve himself. After refusing medical help, Dummar said the stranger asked for a lift to Las Vegas and Dummar took him there, dropping him off behind the Sands Hotel and giving him some pocket change.
"On the way to Las Vegas, he told me who he was, but I didn't believe him. I thought he was just a bum or a prospector or something, and I didn't really believe that he was Howard Hughes," Dummar said at a press conference in Salt Lake City this week.
Dummar said he did come to believe it was Hughes, and that about eight years later a handwritten will leaving him 1/16th of Hughes' estate was delivered to his gas station.
The pilot, Stein said, claims that Hughes frequented the services of a prostitute named “Sunny,” who was known for having a diamond inset in one of her teeth. The pilot claims he transported Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch and another brothel to enjoy the company of “Sunny,” Stein said.
Stein has set up a toll-free number for anyone with information on the prostitute or other aspects of the case. That number is 877-460-0100.
“I spoke to one of the jurors in the original case,” Stein said. “He said that had he known that Hughes frequently left the hotel, he might have decided the other way.”
Stein said he was retained after he interviewed author Magnesen on his radio show earlier this year. Stein has a weekly show about estate planning on KKOB AM that airs 7 am Saturdays.
Another Santa Fe connection to the Dummar suit, Stein said, is a local woman who once worked for Hughes and was acquainted with Hughes. The woman, who Stein declined to name, is a possible witness, he said.
Stein perhaps is best known locally for representing former Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina during his investigations by the state Judicial Standards Commission in the 1990s. He now lives in Albuquerque.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2006
No, it’s not a remake of the 1980 movie Melvin and Howard. It’s real life.
A New Mexico lawyer, who used to practice in Santa Fe, is representing the Utah man who inspired that film in a new effort to win part of the late billionaire Howard Hughes’ fortune — $156 million.
Stuart Stein said Wednesday that new evidence has emerged to justify a new claim by Melvin Dummar.
Dummar, 61, contends that in 1967 he picked up a bloody and haggard man on a lonely Nevada road. The man, Dummar says, identified himself as Hughes. Dummar said he agreed to drive him to Las Vegas.
Dummar, a former gas station operator, originally made the claim following the eccentric billionaire’s death in 1976. In 1978 a jury in a Nevada probate court case determined that an alleged Hughes will, which named Dummar as a beneficiary, was not admissible in court.
The new lawsuit was filed this week in federal court. Dummar claims William Rice Lummis, a cousin of Hughes, and former Hughes executive Frank William Gay got witnesses to lie when they said Hughes never left the suite at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas, where the reclusive Hughes laid low for years.
The new suit cites new evidence uncovered by Gary Magnesen, a former FBI agent who wrote a book about Dummar's claim. In The Investigation, Magnesen said he spoke with Hughes' former pilot, Robert Deiro, who confirmed taking his boss to the Cottontail Ranch brothel at Lida Junction, Nev.
According to the new lawsuit, Deiro was sworn to secrecy while working for Hughes. But recently he came forward and said he took Hughes to the brothel one night late in December 1967. The pilot said he fell asleep and couldn't find Hughes after he woke up.
Dummar claims he found Hughes t when he pulled off on a dirt road to relieve himself. After refusing medical help, Dummar said the stranger asked for a lift to Las Vegas and Dummar took him there, dropping him off behind the Sands Hotel and giving him some pocket change.
"On the way to Las Vegas, he told me who he was, but I didn't believe him. I thought he was just a bum or a prospector or something, and I didn't really believe that he was Howard Hughes," Dummar said at a press conference in Salt Lake City this week.
Dummar said he did come to believe it was Hughes, and that about eight years later a handwritten will leaving him 1/16th of Hughes' estate was delivered to his gas station.
The pilot, Stein said, claims that Hughes frequented the services of a prostitute named “Sunny,” who was known for having a diamond inset in one of her teeth. The pilot claims he transported Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch and another brothel to enjoy the company of “Sunny,” Stein said.
Stein has set up a toll-free number for anyone with information on the prostitute or other aspects of the case. That number is 877-460-0100.
“I spoke to one of the jurors in the original case,” Stein said. “He said that had he known that Hughes frequently left the hotel, he might have decided the other way.”
Stein said he was retained after he interviewed author Magnesen on his radio show earlier this year. Stein has a weekly show about estate planning on KKOB AM that airs 7 am Saturdays.
Another Santa Fe connection to the Dummar suit, Stein said, is a local woman who once worked for Hughes and was acquainted with Hughes. The woman, who Stein declined to name, is a possible witness, he said.
Stein perhaps is best known locally for representing former Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina during his investigations by the state Judicial Standards Commission in the 1990s. He now lives in Albuquerque.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: GOP QUESTIONS PATSY PAC
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2006
New Mexico’s Republican delegation on Wednesday complained to the Federal Elections Commission about a political-action committee started by Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid.
“It appears that Patricia Madrid has violated federal campaign-finance laws that prohibit the use of “soft money” in a federal election campaign,” says the letter to the FEC signed by Wilson, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Steve Pearce.
The PAC, called Justice For America, raised nearly $500,000 between May 2005 and October 2005, when Madrid announced her candidacy for Congress. The PAC spent nearly $125,000 between May 2005 and this May and has about $492,000 in the bank.
The PAC was visibly raising money just a month before Madrid announced her candidacy. On Sept. 15, the committee hosted former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at a $1,000-per-ticket fundraiser in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.
Under federal law, a candidate for a federal office can’t use money raised for a state PAC. A spokeswoman for the Madrid campaign said that money is “frozen” and has never been used for the congressional race.
But the Republican trio said in their FEC complaint that some of the expenditures “seem to have benefited Madrid and her campaign (for Congress).”
Specifically, the delegation mentions $17,000 in payments to a Washington, D.C., political-consulting firm called Lake, Snell, Perry and Mermin between June 2005 and last September. There also is a Jan. 17, 2006, payment to the firm for $49.64 for “conference calls.”
Madrid campaign manager Caroline Buerkle said none of the firm’s services were for the congressional race. The conference calls took place before Madrid announced for Congress, Buerkle said.
Even if the PAC is dormant, the Republicans argued, Madrid’s husband, Michael Messina, is the chairman of the PAC. This indicates Madrid still has some level of control of the funds, the complaint says.
Part of the FEC complaint reads as if it was meant for eyes beyond the FEC bureaucrats who will deal with the complaint. In fact, at least one part sounds like an attack ad.
Referring to Justice for America, the complaints says, “Virtually all of its donors were wealthy lawyers, corporations or affluent businessmen, most of whom donated thousands of dollars, in excess of any federal limits.”
Madrid spokeswoman Heather Brewer said the complaint shows Wilson is “grabbing at straws” and trying to divert attention from the fact that she has returned only a fraction of the money that embattled former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay donated to her.
Since her first election in 1998, Wilson received nearly $47,000 from DeLay's political-action committee. Last year, she returned the $10,000 she'd collected from DeLay's PAC in June after DeLay was indicted on state charges in Texas. But she didn’t return the $36,959 she received from DeLay between 1998 and 2003. Wilson campaign officials have said she won't return that money.
Black-rubber clouds: If the sky seems dark over Albuquerque this afternoon, it might not be the weather.
A group calling itself PAC505 plans to protest today’s visit by President Bush by tethering some 200 helium-filled black balloons over buildings and homes.
“The balloons will be sufficiently large and elevated to significantly alter the skyscape of downtown and the greater metropolitan area,” PAC505’s Web site says.
“The Black Balloon Fiesta represents a new mode of peaceful political action,” the site says. “In an era when progressives are, for whatever reasons, less inclined to take to the streets and protest, PAC505 is formulating new ways of providing them with a unified voice.”
I guess that beats snorting tear gas and dodging police birdshot, like I remember from my Albuquerque protest days a few decades ago.
Bush is going to Albuquerque to help raise money for Wilson’s campaign.
It’s not clear who makes up PAC505. No names appear on the Web site and no one has filed with the FEC. We’re not sure whether the rubber and helium industries are contributors.
The Madrid campaign says it’s not associated with this PAC. But the state Democratic Party apparently has embraced the idea. “The balloons are symbolic of Wilson's reference during the Republican National Convention when she called George W. Bush her ‘beacon,’ ” a state party news release said.
June 15, 2006
New Mexico’s Republican delegation on Wednesday complained to the Federal Elections Commission about a political-action committee started by Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid.
“It appears that Patricia Madrid has violated federal campaign-finance laws that prohibit the use of “soft money” in a federal election campaign,” says the letter to the FEC signed by Wilson, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Steve Pearce.
The PAC, called Justice For America, raised nearly $500,000 between May 2005 and October 2005, when Madrid announced her candidacy for Congress. The PAC spent nearly $125,000 between May 2005 and this May and has about $492,000 in the bank.
The PAC was visibly raising money just a month before Madrid announced her candidacy. On Sept. 15, the committee hosted former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at a $1,000-per-ticket fundraiser in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.
Under federal law, a candidate for a federal office can’t use money raised for a state PAC. A spokeswoman for the Madrid campaign said that money is “frozen” and has never been used for the congressional race.
But the Republican trio said in their FEC complaint that some of the expenditures “seem to have benefited Madrid and her campaign (for Congress).”
Specifically, the delegation mentions $17,000 in payments to a Washington, D.C., political-consulting firm called Lake, Snell, Perry and Mermin between June 2005 and last September. There also is a Jan. 17, 2006, payment to the firm for $49.64 for “conference calls.”
Madrid campaign manager Caroline Buerkle said none of the firm’s services were for the congressional race. The conference calls took place before Madrid announced for Congress, Buerkle said.
Even if the PAC is dormant, the Republicans argued, Madrid’s husband, Michael Messina, is the chairman of the PAC. This indicates Madrid still has some level of control of the funds, the complaint says.
Part of the FEC complaint reads as if it was meant for eyes beyond the FEC bureaucrats who will deal with the complaint. In fact, at least one part sounds like an attack ad.
Referring to Justice for America, the complaints says, “Virtually all of its donors were wealthy lawyers, corporations or affluent businessmen, most of whom donated thousands of dollars, in excess of any federal limits.”
Madrid spokeswoman Heather Brewer said the complaint shows Wilson is “grabbing at straws” and trying to divert attention from the fact that she has returned only a fraction of the money that embattled former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay donated to her.
Since her first election in 1998, Wilson received nearly $47,000 from DeLay's political-action committee. Last year, she returned the $10,000 she'd collected from DeLay's PAC in June after DeLay was indicted on state charges in Texas. But she didn’t return the $36,959 she received from DeLay between 1998 and 2003. Wilson campaign officials have said she won't return that money.
Black-rubber clouds: If the sky seems dark over Albuquerque this afternoon, it might not be the weather.
A group calling itself PAC505 plans to protest today’s visit by President Bush by tethering some 200 helium-filled black balloons over buildings and homes.
“The balloons will be sufficiently large and elevated to significantly alter the skyscape of downtown and the greater metropolitan area,” PAC505’s Web site says.
“The Black Balloon Fiesta represents a new mode of peaceful political action,” the site says. “In an era when progressives are, for whatever reasons, less inclined to take to the streets and protest, PAC505 is formulating new ways of providing them with a unified voice.”
I guess that beats snorting tear gas and dodging police birdshot, like I remember from my Albuquerque protest days a few decades ago.
Bush is going to Albuquerque to help raise money for Wilson’s campaign.
It’s not clear who makes up PAC505. No names appear on the Web site and no one has filed with the FEC. We’re not sure whether the rubber and helium industries are contributors.
The Madrid campaign says it’s not associated with this PAC. But the state Democratic Party apparently has embraced the idea. “The balloons are symbolic of Wilson's reference during the Republican National Convention when she called George W. Bush her ‘beacon,’ ” a state party news release said.
NET NEUTRALITY and UDALL
I published a story in today's New Mexican about Congressman Tom Udall catching grief from Democrats as well as his Republican opponent over his vote last week on the telecommunications bill known as the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act.
Here's what Democracy For New Mexico had to say about the vote:
CLICK HERE
Udall's GOP opponent Ron Dolin doesn't have his statement on this issue posted on his Web site yet. Some of his comments are included in my story.
A little background on the issue:
The COPE Act is opposed by a wide-reaching, diverse umbrella group called the Save the Internet Coalition, whose include groups like The American Civil Liberties Union, The Christian Coalition, Moveon.org, Common Cause, Parents Television Council, U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), The American Library Association and Gun Owners of America.
According to the coalition’s Web site, net neutrality is “the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.”
According to the coalition, companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner “want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.”
This would be the end result of the COPE Act, the coalition says.
“These companies have a new vision for the Internet,” the Web site says. “Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.”
Here's the House vote on the COPE Act: CLICK HERE
Here's the link to an OpenSecrets.org page on Udall's contributors: CLICK HERE
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