(#94) 23 MARCH
2015, Vol.2, No.9> LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE…& then some!
The
POCAHONTAS CRIER
‘When the Righteous succeed the
people rejoice,
But when the bad govern, men groan!’
– Proverbs 29:2
LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE…
& then some!
It is no secret that this Internet Blog has been critical in its
efforts to ‘expose impropriety and the
appearance of impropriety’, of all county agencies, including that of
the THREE STOOGES that comprise the
current county commission in Pocahontas County, ever since Bill Beard, Jr.
& David McLaughlin announced that they would be candidates in last year’s
election, along with Jamie Walker whose term runs out in the next
election. The
reason we say that is for multiple reasons but primarily due to the fact that
NONE of the current commissioners have any experience ‘in government’ or any aspect of knowing exactly what is their
respective duties and responsibilities as county commissioners! None of them know
WHAT they are supposed to do, or HOW to do what is expected of them, and
what is even more egregious, none of them are capable of even finding out what
they are supposed to do by reading the State Statutes that regulate their
respective public office!
Both McLaughlin and Beard have
spent the better part of their lives chasing after the collective derrières of
cattle with the added ‘experience’ of
driving around in circles delivering mail on the part of McLaughlin, while
Jamie Walker is more at home chasing the derrière of a bear behind the
collective derrières of inbred-bear-dogs
in order to eat greasy-bear-meat and
sell ‘bear-innards’ to Orientals! So the combined knowledge of the THREE
STOOGES regarding ‘government’ consists
of them riding on a state road and wondering how it got there…or some such equivalent!
Meanwhile many of us know from
experience that LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE in many cases while in others OPPOSITES
ATTRACT! So one
thing is certain, we will know shortly just how these maxims will play out on
the county commission as the THREE STOOGES just hired Robert Martin @ $36,000
per/year to become their ‘personal
attorney’! How is that for
being responsible for the spending of ‘public
funds’ to hire someone with such a checkered-career in politics as has
Martin? This is the same ‘Bob Martin’ that started out in
Pocahontas County three decades or so ago, was partnered with Eugene Simmons
way back then and who left the county after Eugene lost his license to practice
law…the first of three times in his career!
You would think that the THREE STOOGES would have at least checked with
the Ethics Commission before hiring Martin or anyone else to see if they have
the authority to do such a deed WITHOUT VOTER APPROVAL – but NO, these Three
Buffoons are too ‘stupid’ to make any
kind of intelligent decision on their own!
After Gene Simmons lost his
license, Martin went to Charleston and tried to ‘blend-in’, before taking a leave of Charleston and going to
Central America & ‘The Pink Motel’
in Belize in a series of erstwhile adventures and rumored ‘run-ins’ before returning to Charleston, and then back to
Pocahontas County where he tried to run for County Prosecutor in 2012, only to
come in second of three candidates. And
when Eugene Simmons won the election, who did he hire as his assistant? None other than Bob Martin – but that relationship came to a sudden & radical END
when County Prosecutor Simmons FIRED MARTIN for which the details still remain
wrapped in mystery & secrecy!
Meanwhile questions of
‘impropriety and the appearance of
impropriety’ have plagued Martin in the following instances:
(1) Actual verifiable facts exist
that pertain to the ‘suspension’ of Martin
from ‘practicing law’ in the federal
court system as per a 1992 case in which certain statements made by Martin at
the time were interpreted by the Fourth Circuit Court to be erroneous and/or
unsupported and therefore lead to his suspension from the practice of law in
the federal court system – and that in turn lead to a ‘reciprocal disciplinary’ action against
Martin by the West Virginia State Bar Association, later overruled by
the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
The reciprocal case was the Committee
on Legal Ethics of the West Virginia State Bar v. Robert P. Martin, et al.,
Case No. 21485, in the Supreme Court of Appeals dated 24 November 1992, in
which at ¶ 6, the record shows that ‘[T]he suspension order of the Fourth Circuit
found that the disciplinary action was warranted against the Respondents
because of alleged misstatements made in a brief and reply brief filed on
behalf of their client….’
(2) Then pursuant to Case Number
05M-3017, as found in ‘The Magistrate
Court of Monongalia County, West Virginia’, Martin was charged with ‘Battery’, offense date ‘11/02/2005’, for violation of W.V. Code
61-2-9C, with a ‘Summons’ date of ‘11/03/2005’, arraignment (plea) date of
‘11/15/2005’, and dismissal date of
21 November 2005 since ‘the victim no longer wishes to pursue charges’.
This case
was publicly reported in ‘The West Virginia Record – West
Virginia’s Legal Journal’ when on 26 July 2006, an article
appeared entitled, “Martin speaks out about fight”. Within the referenced article, the following
elements stand out, whereby Martin admits, to wit:
·
‘[H]e has issued
an apology to everyone who deserves one’;
·
‘[D]oesn’t
include the fellow lawyer he
admits assaulting’;
·
He had struck Michael Fisher ‘with
a beer can and punched him in the head before a West Virginia University
football game’;
·
That Fisher and [Martin’s] ex-wife ‘deserve more than what they
got’;
·
‘[T]o hitting Fisher in the chest with a nearly
full beer can when he spotted him walking through the law school parking lot with Simpson’ [Martin’s
Ex];
·
‘Here they come walking up the stairs of the law school,
and I threw that beer as hard as I could
and hit him in the chest with him…[T]hen I invited him, with some very
colorful language to come up the stairs’ [sic];
·
‘When Fisher stumbled coming up the
stairs, Martin said he began punching him and knocked him to the ground before some law students pulled
him off’;
·
‘[H]e hadn’t
touched alcohol all day before being given the beer he hit Fisher with, and that he had only taken a sip out of it
before throwing it’;
·
‘I hired a lawyer
and then [Fisher] asked to meet with me because he didn’t want it to happen
again…I met with him and explained to him why he was a moron and that he
[Martin] hadn’t given any thought to that
warrant’;
·
‘He insists that the
incident has not hurt his reputation
as an attorney’;
·
“After the thing
hit the paper and it was on channel 3, I got tons of e-mails and phone calls
from people saying, ‘I’m sorry but way to go’;
·
‘It had no impact on me. If I was a
plaintiff’s lawyer, it would’ve helped’;
·
‘He even joked it could’ve been the start of a new
advertising campaign’; and,
·
“Some people have
had some great ideas for ads…like, ‘Bob Martin is proven fighter’ [sic] and ‘He
will fight for you.’”.
Couldn’t a
knowledgeable and reasonable person easily wonder why Martin wasn’t
additionally charged with: having in his possession and
drinking from an open container of alcohol in a public place; on the public
property of WVU Law School; reckless endangerment by throwing an almost full
can-of-beer and hitting someone; assaulting that same person with punches to
the head; and showing no remorse? Again,
this all goes to the question of ‘impropriety and the
appearance of impropriety’ in regards to an ‘officer-of-the-court’ , someone involved in law enforcement, which
traditionally has been expected to be at all times above-reproach. Now how many of us common folk could expect
the same kind of leniency shown to
Martin were we found drunk & reckless stumbling around Marlinton or
anywhere else? Is there a ‘double-standard’ or what?
(3) Yet another incident occurred on 21 October
2012 whereupon Martin was actually ‘arrested’
by the State Police via a ‘Criminal
Complaint’. It was also filed in ‘The Magistrate Court of Monongalia County, West
Virginia’,
Case No.12M-7854, Obstructing an Officer – WVC § 41-3-17. The complaint states that Martin appeared to
the arresting State Trooper Officers as being under-the-influence of alcohol,
as was admitted by Martin. However, as things developed prior to the hearing, the
arresting State Police officer was ‘transferred’
FROM Morgantown TO Huntington and therefore was unavailable on the day of
Martin’s hearing, so the matter sort of conveniently disappeared as a direct
& proximate result of the arresting officer not being able to return to Morgantown
to testify! Isn’t this reminiscent
of a similar disappearance of the arresting Lewisburg police officer after
having arrested the late Walt Weiford for DUI on Rt. 219 north of Lewisburg? In that case, the matter was tucked away in
City Court instead of Circuit Court and Weiford only received ‘home-confinement’ for 24 hours instead
of losing his license to drive for six-months!
Yet this is the same Pocahontas ‘county
prosecutor’ who prosecuted others for the same or lesser offenses and degrees of drunkenness! Ah, but the local deputies during the time of
Weiford were always able to get away with the multiple-abuses of youth &
others by holding the DUIs over Weiford!
So there is a ‘double-standard’
after all!
Now while McLaughlin & Beard
just took office in January 2015, already they are so INCOMPETENT in NOT
KNOWING THEIR DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES that they feel they need their own
private-attorney to guide & instruct them in their decision making – SO WHO DO YOU THINK WILL BE MAKING ALL THE DECISIONS FOR THE
THREE STOOGES FROM THIS MONTH FORWARD?
Here we
are with ONE PERSON, BOB MARTIN, AN UNELECTED PUBLIC OFFICIAL who will be
making all the decisions for the county commission simply because McLaughlin,
Beard & Walker ARE SO INCOMPETENT!
And for
anyone who actually has read the law, then they would know that all legal
advice must come from the ELECTED COUNTY PROSECUTOR – NOT FROM AN UNELECTED
PERSON WHO IS NOT A PUBLIC OFFICIAL!
And what about a CONFLICT OF
INTEREST whereby Martin owns property at Snowshoe along with a former
girl-friend – what happens when he has to ‘advise’
the THREE STOOGES about the upcoming RAD VOTE?
What then? Will Martin recuse
himself and will Eugene Simmons then advise the county commission about the
ramifications of giving Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. (SMI) FULL PRIVATE-CORPORATE
CONTROL OF COUNTY
LAND &
RESOURCES?
In less than three-months the new
county commission has ‘fubarbed’ the
county government by turning three votes into ONE VOTE as directed and ordered
by the ‘private attorney’ hired by
the THREE STOOGES who still do not know their respective Duties &
Responsibilities! If it’s this bad so
soon – then just wait & you will see just how bad it can become…and then
some! No wonder folks are LEAVING the
county! And
just think, at every meeting, the THREE STOOGES each get $1700 per/meeting, and
now Martin will get $1500 per/meeting! That’s $1700 x 3 = $5100 + $1500 = $6600 per/meeting x 2
meetings a month = $13,200 per/month these ‘parasites’
are bilking the public and living off the WELFARE of all those folks being paid
Minimum Wages & on Fixed Incomes! What a scam these THREE STOOGES & THEIR
ATTORNEY have going for themselves & then some!
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER…WE ALL REAP WHAT WE HAVE SOWN…&
then some!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
The Pocahontas Crier is an independent, free, non-subscription, Internet News Service
providing in depth reporting on important issues directly affecting the
Citizens of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and meant for entertainment in
the true ‘muckraking’ & ‘iconoclast’
tradition of questioning authority, challenging corruption, exposing
impropriety and the appearance of impropriety, and offering Common Sense
Alternatives for
THE
GREATER COMMON GOOD BEFORE SELF…
or any
Special Interests!
We fight for Social
Justice on all fronts and are an integral part of The
Crier Coalition of Internet News Services comprised of The Pocahontas Commentator, The Pocahontas Crier, Signal
Fires of WV, & Rolling Thunder
in association with Echoes from the Holl’r.
Email comments & suggestions to: pocahontascrier88@gmail.com
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