Diggs Standard for Supremes

By Joel Thurtell
Staff Writer

A former congressman named Charles Diggs spent seven months in prison in 1978 for what reportedly is routine behavior by three justices on the U. S. Supreme Court.

According to the April 30, 2023 New York Times, Supreme Court justices
Neil M. Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett M. Kavanaugh “regularly used employees in their chambers to coordinate their outside academic duties despite a judicial advisory opinion — which the justices say they voluntarily follow — that staff members should not help ‘in performing activities for which extra compensation is to be received.’ ”

Is the U.S. Justice Department concerned that federal employees are being paid to do private work for the justices? This is the same Department of Justice that in 1978 cracked down on civil rights activist then Detroit’s congressman.

Diggs was convicted of assigning congressional aides to work in his family’s funeral parlor and then submitting false federal pay claims for them.

“Despite the prohibition against enlisting court staff members to help with paid outside work,” the Times reported, “records show that much of the labor of keeping up with the justices’ teaching and other activities at Scalia Law fell to the chambers’ administrative staff — organizing class materials and student papers, managing student visits and coordinating guest lectures.”

“Justice Gorsuch’s staff used the justice’s login to create an online “forum/discussion” space for students and post readings, and submitted his grades to the school,” according to the Times. “The staff of Justice Thomas requested his class roster and collected his syllabus, helping tack down missing reading materials. Justice Kavanaugh’s chambers inquired about when he would get his paychecks, and whether he would get a raise.”

How is working in a private funeral parlor different in principle from Supreme Court employees acting as support staff for the justices’ outside jobs?

Federal prosecutors called Diggs’ offense fraud. And so it was — forcing federal employees to work for his personal business and submitting pay claims asserting they were doing congressional work pretty well defines fraud.

Will Attorney General Merrick Garland assign a special counsel to investigate payroll fraud at the Supreme Court?

Equal treatment before the law. Call it the Diggs Standard: what applies to a black civil rights activist also applies to Supreme Court justices.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Bad government, JC & Me, Joel's J School | Leave a comment

A Jewish airman in a Nazi POW Camp

BY JOEL THURTELL

The Detroit Free Press scrapped this story when I wrote it 21 years ago.

What do you think? Would you have published this story?

First, some background: He was retired in 2002, but Detroit TV weather caster Sonny Eliot’s folksy, chatty act left fond memories among many Detroit area people. I was then a Free Press reporter. I heard that the Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield planned to interview Eliot for an oral history project. Sonny Eliot was a US Army Air Forces airman shot down over Germany in World War II. He was a Jew. It seemed important for the Holocaust museum to record his story. I wanted to write a story pegged to the center’s interview. Sonny Eliot agreed to let me interview him. I wrote a story. It was not published.

Here is the story that didn’t make the Free Press:

gfbyBy JOEL THURTELLFREE PRESS STAFF WRITER    Before he was a wisecracking Detroit radio and TV weatherman, Sonny Eliot was a B-24 pilot who was shot down and imprisoned by the Germans in World War II.

Eliot, the son of immigrant Jews, well knew that he could be killed if the Nazis found out his religion. So he covered up his Judaism. Because of that subterfuge, Eliot says, he learned something very disturbing about his fellow American prisoners.

By 1944, it was well known that Hitler’s people were killing millions of Jews, yet Eliot discovered that like the Germans, many of his imprisoned countrymen were prejudiced against Jews and were not upset when American Jewish fliers were rounded up, apparently to be killed.

In front of a video camera Sunday at the Holocaust Memorial Center, Eliot, 78, recounted his experiences in the nearly 15 months he spent in Stalag Luft I, the German prisoner-of-war camp where he was placed after his B-24 bomber was shot down over central Germany by German fighters on Feb. 24, 1944.

The taping session was part of an oral history project which records the experiences of people who were victims of German persecution. To date, the library has 275 Holocaust-related videotapes.

In an interview with the Free Press a few days before the videotaping, Eliot was asked what it was like to be a Jew in a German prison camp.

“Not much of a story,” said Eliot. “The only time this came up was after D-Day. They rounded up all the Jewish flyers in the camp. There must have been two, maybe 300.”

The Germans placed the Jews in a separate barracks, Eliot said, and “the rumor just ripped through the entire camp that these people would all be put on a train and taken to some place like Auschwitz.”

Eliot was not among them. The Germans believed – or at least Eliot thought they believed – his lie that the downed pilot known as Marvin Eliot Schlossberg was a Christian.

That fiction was possible because when Eliot bailed out of his burning Liberator, the sudden opening of his parachute popped his shoes off his feet and blew off his dog tags, the metal cards giving his identity, including religion.

“Even if I’d had them, I think I would have thrown the dog tags away,” Eliot said.

“I landed right in the town where we had bombed,” Eliot said. “They thanked me in their own way – they kicked my ass.”

When a German officer demanded to know his religion, Eliot answered, “Martin Luther.”

He was moved to a prison camp for aviators at Barth, a small town on the Baltic Sea. The Germans signed him in as a Protestant.

But when the Jews were moved to a separate barracks, Eliot said, “I felt, my God, my people – I’m a part of them. I’ll be brave, I’ll go, and so I talked to a Father Carlton, who was a Catholic priest captured at Dunkirk.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Eliot said. “Should I go tell them they forgot me? Hey, I’m with those guys?”

Original text: “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘get the fuck back in the barracks and shut up. I said ‘okay,’ and that’s exactly what I did.” End original.

Re-written text per editor: The priest told Eliot to go back to his barracks and say nothing.

    “That’s exactly what I did.” End re-written text.

Now all the Jews were gone but Eliot, and except for a few Americans in his room who knew the truth, he was seen as a Christian by his fellow prisoners.

With their Jewish compatriots gone, the Americans’ behavior loosened up.

“The anti-semitism which is so strange to me began to surface in small little ways, not very important, but I was aware of them in that you would hear jokes like, `They’ve got three balls up there – they’re turning the barracks into the pawn shop place.’ ”

“Not a great deal of sympathy for putting all the Jews into one barracks,” Eliot said.

There was no resistance to removal of the Jewish flyers, no expression of repugnance. “It was like a gentleman’s agreement,” said Eliot.

Meanwhile, thinking there were no Jews to hear them, Americans made caustic remarks about the Jews. “They called them `little flicks.’ ”

“Blacks are the same way. They would hear it, too. It’s not as hidden with blacks because they are immediately identified.”

“I don’t think they did it out of meanness. It’s that way still today, everywhere.”

Before the Germans could move the Jewish airmen out, Russian soldiers liberated Stalag Luft I.

Eliot went to the office and found his file.

On it, a German official had scrawled, “Jew.”

So the Germans knew.

“Somebody had turned me in.”

 

Here is a trail of internal newspaper staff messages about my story, starting with my photo assignment. David Crumm was the Free Press religion writer. Dennis Niemiec was a Free Press reporter. Lisa Manns was my assigning editor. Leesa Bainbridge was editor of the Free Press Oakland County newsroom and boss over both me and Lisa Manns.

At the Free Press, reporters did not make photo assignments without getting their assigning editor’s okay first to write the story. The existence of a photo request means that my story idea was approved by Lisa Manns. She placed the story on the budget, or schedule, and gave it a file name, known as a “slug”: 1SONNY19. The “1” before “SONNY” means the story was scheduled to start in the first, or state, edition, and “19” means it was to run March 19, 2002.

Messages appear most recent first, meaning that replies precede questions. We are reading backward through time and will finally arrive at the story text. Unlike other stories I’ve presented, this one has no indication of publication date, edition, or key words, all of which would mean it had made the paper.
, which this story did not.
 

<UB>FREE PRESS PHOTO REQUEST<RO>

<BO>Day/Date: <RO>2-9-01

<BO>Time: <RO>9:30 a.m.

<BO>Flexible? <RO>little

<BO>Will reporter be there? <RO>yes

<BO>Discussed w/ which photo editor? <RO>

<BO>Subject/phone: <RO>Sonny Elliott, (w) 248-455-7200; (h) 248-661-0046

<BO>Contact (if not subject): <RO>

<BO>Location: <RO>37412 Halstead

<BO>Directions: <RO>Lodge to Northwestern to 14 Mile to Halstead; South on Halstead; The Legends condos are on west side of Halstead, second driveway on west side 100 yards south of 14 Mile.

<BO>What is story about? <RO>Sonny Elliott, the perennial Detroit weathercaster, was an airman in World War II. Shot down over Europe, he was captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war. What was it like to be a Jew in a Nazi POW camp? Elliott’s story is to be videotaped Feb. 18 for the Holocaust Memorial Center’s oral history program. We are trying for an advance interview with Elliott.

<BO>Reporter/phone: <RO>Thurtell, 248-586-2609

<BO>Story editor/phone: <RO> Bainbridge, 248-586-2615

<BO>Slug: <RO> 1SONNYXX

<BO>Day/time needed: <RO>Next week

<BO>Run date: <RO>

<BO>Section/position: <RO>

 

Joel:

 

Very sorry to see such a lack of vision and understanding of these issues.

 

We’re talking: brain dead on this score.

 

— David

 

CRUMM  19-MAR-01,11:56

 

incredible!!!! I think you need to ask if you can freelance it for some other publication.

 

NIEMIE 19-MAR-01,11:47

 

The word at this point is the same — we don’t plan to run it. I take the

 

fall for this one. I thought he was part of a national holocaust museum

 

exhibit. Just telling his story that is years old doesn’t seem much of a

 

story or timely.

 

BAINBR 19-MAR-01,10:56

 

Leesa – Any word on my Sonny Eliot story? There are possible hooks: for

 

instance, I understand the Legislature may set a Holocaust Remembrance Week

 

to start April 19.

 

Joel

THURTE 19-MAR-01,10:27

 

Joel,

 

I’ll run your suggestion by Jim Finkelstein. But I don’t expect he’ll get back to us before Monday.

 

Leesa

 

<BO>BAINBR<RO> 23-FEB-01,15:04 <FO>

 

 

Joel:

 

They’re idiots!

 

If I were editing, I might suggest a couple of small tinkers with the

 

story. For instance, given how little of most stories we actually get “out

 

front” these days before a jump, I might have moved up the ‘graf in which

 

you picture Sonny sitting in front of the microphone — the “news peg” as

 

it were.

 

But that’s very very minor stuff.

 

It’s a great little story — and definitely should have been promoted

 

and run.

 

Dolts!

 

David

 

CRUMM  16-MAR-01,17:18

 

My note on 2-19-1:

 

Photo shot 1SONNY19, but per Lisa Manns, “Leesa read it and we aren’t going to run it. She’s going to talk to you about it.”

 

On Feb. 19, the day it was to have run, I made this note: Per Leesa Bainbridge, it’s a one source story and we normally don’t do one-source stories. She misunderstood when I pitched it and thought it was part of some national thing. It’s just this one guy’s memories, not that important, not that many people would be interested in Sonny Eliot’s experiences in World War II, even though he is famous. Doesn’t work as a news story. She will pitch it to entertainment. But I need to remove “fuck.”

 

<RO>

 

Leesa _ I can just never say die. Here goes on the Sonny Eliot story:

 

There is a hook for it on April 20. That is Yom HaShoah, an international day for remembering the Holocaust.

 

I could talk to Holocaust Center people in West Bloomfield and Washington to get more background about what happened to the Jewish prisoners; get some reaction about the experience Eliot had with Americans’ expressions of anti-Semitism and lack of sympathy for the Jews. And maybe interview Eliot again to probe more for his feelings about what happened.

 

What do you think? Is it a dead horse, or can I revive it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joel <BO>THURTE<RO> 23-FEB-01,14:51 <FO>

 

 

 

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FDA approval of Alzheimer’s ‘cure’ a huge gift to drug maker

BY JOEL THURTELL

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single disease that afflicts a vast portion of the world’s population must be in want of a cure.

According to the FDA, that single disease is Alzheimer’s, and the cure is a new drug called aducanabab, trade-named “Aduhelm” by its manufacturer.

It is equally axiomatic that the first drug manufacturer to market an FDA-approved cure for Alzheimer’s disease will be the winner of profits beyond imagining. The FDA has approved other drugs such as Arisept, Namenda and Exelon that treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s, but do not stop the disease. No drug has been approved that actually stops the disease.

Aduhelm’s manufacturer, Biogen, has set a stunning cost of $56,000 a year per patient.

Biogen’s FDA coup will be a huge moneymaker both for the company and for other profit-oriented parts of the medical establishment.

There are two hitches. Normally, the FDA demands that a new drug be proven safe and effective. The rationale for creating a Pure Food and Drugs Act in the early twentieth century was that the government needed to protect the public from mendacious claims of miracle-working, money-grasping drug makers. But Biogen has not proven Aduhelm to be  safe or effective for treatment of Alzheimer’s. Moreover, clinical trials have shown that any minimal gains from the drug have been nullified by evidence of “swelling or bleeding in the brain the drug caused in the trials,” according to The New York Times.

The FDA’s own advisory committee along with Alzheimer’s experts warned the agency that Aduhelm is not effective.

Apparently, the FDA anticipated blowback. It required Biogen to complete an additional clinical trial of Aduhelm’s effectiveness, and declared it might withdraw its approval. However, there is no requirement that the FDA reverse its decision, according to the Times.

It is not clear from the Times article why the FDA approved this non-cure. The newspaper reported that “patient advocacy groups lobbied vigorously for approval because there are so few treatments available for the debilitating condition.” Several drugs that show more promise than Aduhelm are years from approval, according to the Times.

I suspect many readers, like me, are puzzled about why the FDA selected one manufacturer as the beneficiary of an approval that will give Biogen a huge lead in marketing a product it can claim “cures” Alzheimer’s. It seems like a throwback to the 1800’s, when drug makers were free to make the most audacious and fallacious claims about products without oversight from a government empowered to force testing of the drugs’ contents, safety, and effectiveness.

It may seem too soon to express suspicion about the FDA approval process. The federal government could not be anything other than fair and decent in its oversight of the clinical trials of a drug with such obvious consequences both for patients suffering with Alzheimer’s.

Right?

Do we know of any past FDA history where the agency was less than honest in its dealings with rival manufacturers and the public?

As a matter of fact, yes.

In my next column, I will discuss my own and other reported findings in a 1980’s case involving improper relations between a drug manufacturer and the FDA. In subsequent columns, I will discuss additional FDA scandals and outline procedures I think reporters should follow as they — hopefully — investigate FDA’s odd approval of a drug that doesn’t get its job done.

Stay tuned.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

Posted in Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's and dementia, Bad government, Karen Fonde | Leave a comment

Times n-word hypocrisy

I sent the following letter to letters@nytimes on May 2, 2021. So far, it has not appeared in The Times.

To the Editor:

Regarding The Times’ May 2 op-ed, “How the N-Word Became Unsayable,” by John McWhorter: Times editors thought it was okay for the newspaper to print “nigger” in a newspaper essay about the word’s implications. But it definitely was not okay for former Times reporter Donald McNeil to utter the same word over dinner in a discussion of the word’s implications. You gave Mr. McWhorter prime space in the “Sunday Review.” You fired Mr. McNeil. How do you reconcile your contradictory behaviors?

Yours truly,

Joel Thurtell

Posted in Joel's J School, Times letters | Leave a comment

SPIKING THE SUPER BOWL POOL

First posted on February 5, 2012 JT

Revised version posted February 1, 2021 

By Joel Thurtell

I’m no sports writer, so it was neat to think my byline would appear over a Super Bowl story.

What a drag that my first-ever Super Bowl piece failed to meet the exacting publication standards of the Detroit Free Press.

Yes, my Super Bowl story was spiked.

It was a story that might have given readers a chance to ask what is and what is not tolerable behavior by a law enforcement official.

Is it okay for a prosecutor, say, to break the law if he does it at home, with his pals?

I was working on the Ed McNamara story late in 2002, right after the FBI — with lots of media fanfare — raided his government offices. McNamara was Wayne County executive. Now he is the late Ed McNamara.

Any story about Mac was also a story about his right-hand man, the onetime deputy Wayne County executive, Mike Duggan.

Today (2021), Mike Duggan is Mayor of Detroit. Back in 2002, Mike Duggan was Wayne County prosecutor. Duggan was thoroughly entwined in the McNamara Band’s political ops, so if the feds’ spotlight was on Mac, it was also on Mike Duggan.

Remember that FBI probe? Didn’t think so. They prosecuted a couple of lackeys, but never got close to Mac or Mike.

Never fear. I was on the case.

For a couple years, I was the Detroit Free Press reporter assigned to cover Wayne County government. By the time of the FBI raid, I’d been off that job for, well, about eight years. Why tap me for the McNamara story?

Well, they needed SOMEBODY to do it. The Detroit News had two reporters kicking the Free Press’ butt left and right. One reporter focused on county government, while the other mined the federal court. They coordinated their reporting on the FBI’s investigation of the county. They were embarrassing the Free Press, one reporter covered a slew of out-county towns and schools along with Wayne County government. He was thirty miles from the Detroit action, working in a strip mall office in Livonia.

An editor thought of me. I had covered Wayne County eight years before. Presumably, I could do it again from a desk in Oakland County. A third reporter was assigned to our little team. She backed out. Nobody wanted the job. The lone reporter on this godforsaken beat was Dennis Niemiec, and one look at this tired and frustrated man was warning enough. My assignment was to help Dennis turn this thing around.

Dennis offered solace. He told me his “pizza” theory. He said editors aren’t looking for real substance in stories. What they want is a talker, a story they can hype to fellow editors in the various meetings that consume much of their working days. A story they can chuckle about, joke about, make other editors envious about. A story, in short, that was like a pizza. Full of short-term flavor, high on fat, tasty, but not necessarily of lasting value except maybe to the waistline.

By the time Super Bowl 2003 rolled around, I was delivering pizzas, or trying to, by myself. The day after New Year’s, I was roaming around the bowels of the City-County Building in Detroit looking for some records having to do with county officials’ conflict of interest disclosures. I emerged from the darkness of Wayne County government into a cold, blustery morning and saw Bob Ficano, the newly-elected Wayne County executive, giving his maiden speech on the steps of the old county courthouse. Standing in the crowd taking notes was a Free Press reporter none too happy about being there. “Where’s Niemiec? He’s supposed to be covering this.”

Niemiec, it turned out, at that very moment was retiring from the pizza delivery business. He quit. Now I was delivering my pizza on my own. I thought I had a juicy one. I’d gotten a tip that Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Duggan had a little pizza party of his own on Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I don’t know if he served pizza. Duggan and his assistant prosecutors , I was told, had wagered on the outcome of the game. You know, a Super Bowl pool. They’re pretty common. But they are illegal. So says the Michigan Penal Code.

Mike didn’t deny holding the pool. He told me, “I’m learning that I can’t relax and make a mistake for a single minute when you’re the prosecutor. But I’ve learned. I sent a twenty dollar check over to Focus Hope as a donation to charity and I’ve learned a lesson from it.”

I wrote my Super Bowl story. I quoted Mike Duggan admitting he had the pool. I quoted a University of Michigan law prof that pools are illegal. I quoted the Michigan Penal Code. My story said that a prosecutor who puts other people in jail for breaking the law himself broke the law by sponsoring an illegal gambling activity. My story might go down in history as “pool-gate” or “Bowlgate”! Colleagues were reading my story in the computer. People were stopping by my desk for a laugh. Great story, Joel!

But there was a problem. It’s called the double-standard. Hypocrisy. You know, people who live in glass houses and all that.

A managing editor broke the news: “Joel, if we print your story, the Free Press will never be able to hold another Super Bowl pool.”

There would be no “Pool-gate.” No “Bowlgate.”

The only pool for my story was the toilet.

Journalists wring their hands about the dismal Future of Newspapers.

At the Free Press, the only concern was The Future of the Super Bowl Pool.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

 

 

Posted in Bad government, future of newspapers | Leave a comment

SPIKING THE SUPER BOWL PIZZA

Spiking the Super Bowl Pizza 

Breaking news January 20, 2021 – In a parting shot at anyone who believes in rule of law, the now former President, Donald Trump, commuted the prison sentence of disgraced Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Current Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan thinks it’s great. But hey, since when did Duggan, a former Wayne County prosecutor, think that obedience to the law applied to him or members of his privileged political class? Here for the sake of irony is the story I wrote before Kwame Kilpatrick’s conviction. I posted it on my joelontheroad blog to celebrate the 2012 Super Bowl: 

By Joel Thurtell

I’m no sports writer, so it was neat to think my byline would appear over a Super Bowl story.

What a drag that my first-ever Super Bowl piece failed to meet the exacting publication standards of the Detroit Free Press.

Yes, my Super Bowl story was spiked.

Personally, I thought it was a pretty good little tale. Nothing like the Free Press scoop on current felon and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

But still, had it been printed, it might have given readers a chance to ask what is and what is not tolerable behavior by a law enforcement official.

Is it okay for a prosecutor, say, to break the law if he does it at home, with his pals?

I was working on the Ed McNamara story, late in 2002, right after the FBI — with lots of media fanfare — raided the offices of the then Wayne County executive and now the late Ed McNamara.

Any story about Mac was perforce a story about his right-hand man, the onetime deputy Wayne County executive, Mike Duggan.

By this time, Duggan was Wayne County prosecutor. But Duggan was thoroughly entwined in the McNamara Band’s political ops, so if the feds’ spotlight was on Mac, it was also on Mike Duggan.

Hey, anybody heard about that FBI probe lately? They prosecuted a couple of people, I seem to recall, but they never charged anyone close to Mac or Mike.

But never fear, for I was investigating, too.

What, you might ask, was the current editor, reporter, staff writer, photographer, chief layout person, chief of the copy desk and all around mayordomo of joelontheroad.com doing on the McNamara story?

For a couple years pre-newspaper strike, meaning from about May of 1993 till July 13, 1995, I was the Detroit Free Press reporter whose job it was to cover Wayne County doings. By the time of the FBI raid, I’d been off that job for, well, about eight years, either striking, running my used radio business, writing a novel and then back at the paper I was writing about Oakland County lakes. Why tap me for the McNamara story?

Well, they needed SOMEBODY to do it. The Detroit News was kicking the Free Press’ butt left and right with a reporter duo well-connected both to county and federal sources. That one-two punch was burying the Free Press, where one reporter, actually, one super-reporter, Dennis Niemiec, was covering … Oh, let’s see, what did Dennis cover? Why, he covered Livonia, he covered Plymouth and Canton and Northville and anything else western Waynish. He covered the Wayne County Detroit Metropolitan Airport (a full-time job by itself) and let’s see, oh by the way, he covered Wayne County. All from an office in a strip-mall at Six Mile and Newburgh in Livonia.

Somebody figured out Dennis needed help. Somebody thought of me. A guy who covered Wayne County eight years ago could do it again. Besides, nobody else wanted the job. One look at Dennis — tired, frustrated and beaten up — was warning enough.

So The News was eating our lunch every day and I was supposed to help Dennis turn this thing around. Dennis offered solace. He told me his “pizza” theory. Editors, he said, aren’t looking for real substance in stories. What they want is a talker, a story they can hype in the various meetings that consume much of their working days. A story they can chuckle about, joke about, make other editors envious about. A story, in short, that was like a pizza. Full of short-term flavor, high on fat, tasty, but not necessarily of lasting value except maybe to the waistline.

By the time Super Bowl 2003 rolled around, I was delivering pizzas, or trying to, by myself. The day after New Years, I was roaming around the bowels of the City-County Building in Detroit looking for some records having to do with county officials’ conflict of interest disclosures. I’d found them where county officials had squirreled them away in some file cabinets in the back of the county’s cavernous print shop. I emerged into a cold, blustery morning to see Bob Ficano, newly-elected Wayne County exec, giving his maiden speech on the steps of the county executive building. Standing in the crowd taking notes was Mike Elrick, a Free Press reporter none too happy about being there. “Where the fuck is Niemiec? He’s supposed to be covering this,” Elrick said.

At that very moment, Dennis was in the offices of Free Press bosses tendering his resignation. He’d no longer be delivering pizzas. Or rather, the was going to deliver them as a public relations guy for the very county executive whose speech was thundering via the PA speakers up Lafayette Boulevard.

Boy, did I think I had a pizza, though. I’d heard from sources both inside and around the prosecutor’s office that Mike Duggan had a little pizza party of his own on Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I don’t know if he served pizza, but the main thing is that he and his assistant prosecutors had a pool. They bet on the outcome of the game.

You know, a Super Bowl pool. They’re everywhere. Why, they had them in the newsroom, in the sports department. Pools were and I’m sure still are a big deal at the Free Press and probably at most other papers.

But they are illegal. So says the Michigan Penal Code. Mike didn’t deny holding the pool. He told me, “I’m learning that I can’t relax and make a mistake for a single minute when you’re the prosecutor. But I’ve learned. I sent a twenty dollar check over to Focus Hope as a donation to charity and I’ve learned a lesson from it.”

Just because he said he did it and just because the Penal Code says it’s illegal doesn’t mean Mike broke the law. See, we have this thing called the “presumption of innocence.” For the pool to have been truly illegal, there would have to have been an investigation. Then, a prosecutor somewhere (obviously not in Wayne County) would have to have authorized a warrant charging Mike with the crime. But even then, it wouldn’t have been a crime. No, it wouldn’t have been a crime until a judge or jury had found him guilty of violating the anti-pool law.

Until then, any story I wrote would lean heavily on words such as “alleged” and “apparent.”

How can I explain this in a more timely way? Well, let’s think about the mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. The media have been tooting the perjury horn since Mike Elrick and Jim Schaefer broke the most recent Kwame-gate story. And quite a story it is. But we can’t say Kwame actually committed perjury until a judge or jury convicts him of that crime. [Note to readers: I wrote this essay before Kwame was charged.]

Presumption of innocence.

Okay, so I was armed with all my “apparents” and “allegeds” and I wrote a story that might have gone down in history as “poolgate” or “Bowlgate.”

But the only bowl my story found was in the toilet.

I quoted Mike, I quoted a UM law prof, I quoted the Penal Code. I had a neat story about a prosecutor sworn to uphold the law sponsoring a gambling activity that admittedly was low stakes but that allegedly, maybe, violated the criminal code. No charges, no trial, no conviction. Standard journalism: I quoted people including Mike who said the pool took place.

Kind of like I imagine happened with the Kwame Kilpatrick text message story. Nobody’s denying the text messages, right? Into the paper it goes.

Not so fast. My story was written. It was in the computer. People were stopping by my desk to share a laugh. Great story.

The editors found the story highly amusing. A great read. But there was a problem. It’s called the double-standard, aka hypocrisy. People who live in glass houses and all that.

An editor broke the news: “If we print your story, we’ll never be able to hold another Super Bowl pool at the Free Press.”

So, thanks to Free Press editors, Mike Duggan dodged a bullet.

The news story was less important than keeping up the tradition of Free Press football pools.

Kwame Kilpatrick was not so lucky.

Consider this: Kwame being investigated was the first step toward determining whether he had violated any laws. Why was there an investigation? Thanks to Free Press reports.

Outside the newspaper industry, many people are legitimately worried about The Future of Newspapers.

At the Free Press, the big concern was The Future of their Super Bowl Pool.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

 

 

Posted in Bad government, Kwamegate | Leave a comment

I BEAT OHIO STATE!

The last game of the University of Michigan football season is normally played against perennial rival Ohio State University. Due to the pandemic, the Michigan-Ohio State game scheduled for Saturday, December 12, 2020, was cancelled. All the more reason to commemorate the non-event with a new version of my essay celebrating the Michigan-Ohio State game that was played 75 years ago. 

 “I BEAT OHIO STATE!” 

By Joel Thurtell

HANK FONDE

HANK FONDE

The 80-year-old guy with the shock of white hair wore a fading maize and blue University of Michigan t-shirt. But this old man was not just any Michigan fan. Nor was it just any UM t-shirt. The woman, maybe in her fifties, quite evidently from Ohio, didn’t know either of these things. And neither I nor my two sons who were listening knew the story behind a clue this old man was about to reveal to us. I would not piece the story together for several years, even though I’d known this onetime Michigan football player and coach for more than three decades and was married to his oldest daughter for forty years.

The conversation — if you can call it that — took place in summer 2003 near the dock at J & G Marina on McGregor Bay in Ontario, a few miles by water from an island where this old man and his family had a summer cottage bought in the mid-1960s, when he was a UM football coach, second-in-command under another well-known Michigan player and coach, Bump Elliott.

The Ohio woman spotted the yellow and blue t-shirt with the UM logo and some script she didn’t understand. The shirt was a gift from UM to Hank and those 1948 team-mates still living at the time Michigan won the Rose Bowl game on January 1, 1998. The shirt commemorated two Rose Bowl victories and two National championships 50 years apart. Hank was a member of that New Year’s Day 1948 UM team that blew the University of Southern California away. The score was Michigan 49, USC 0.

The program for the October 4, 1947 Michigan-Stanford game described “diminutive ‘Hank,’ stout-hearted little speedster from Knoxville, Tenn., weighed about 150 pounds when he flung his compact frame against Army’s giants in 1945 at Yankee Stadium. Army players dubbed him ‘hardest to stop.’ He weighs about ten pounds more now and still is hard to stop. He scored thrice in 1945, averaging 4.1 yards per game, and last year he scored two touchdowns and averaged 3.23. He’s 23 and five-eight.” Michigan coach Bennie Osterbaan said Hank was “the best back, pound for pound, I’ve ever had.”

HANK FONDE makes touchdown in Northwestern game

HANK FONDE makes touchdown in Northwestern game

The Ohio woman didn’t know this. When her eyes detected blue, her brain saw red. All she knew was that this old man was wearing a t-shirt belonging to the enemy, the hated University of Michigan. She was an Ohio State fan. An easily perturbed Ohio State fan (aren’t they all?). Had she stopped to learn who this old man was, she might have heard an interesting story. But the ending of that story would have perturbed her even more.

My sons and I watched the Ohio woman, unforgettable because she came on so angry, so full of bile, so hostile to an old man who had said nothing to offend her. Hank could not respond round for round to this woman’s incessant, nasty volleys. Hank had Alzheimer’s Disease. His memory had long been gone for the people, places, things and events that once were dear to him.

But I knew who Hank was and I could have told her some phenomenal things about him. Most of it has nothing to do with football. Why, it was Hank who took me fishing in McGregor Bay and put us over the best bass and pike grounds. It was Hank who coached me to filet a bass or pike. It was Hank who helped me with the summer-long project of replacing the porch roof on our first house in Plymouth. I can hear him still: “Measure twice, cut once,” or he would declare, “level and half a bubble over!”

Hank loved language. His father, who played football for the University of Tennessee, was a poet. Hank did not write poetry, but he had a way of using language that is unforgettable. When he shook your hand, he would say, “Put ‘er there for ninety days!” If you dropped something or made a loud noise, Hank would shout, “Shoot him in the pants! The coat and vest belong to me!” If you were a tall person, he’d tell you, “It’s a long drink of water.” If you cut a fart, he’d say, “Who fired that shot?”

“Some low-down, dirty, good-for-nothin’, thievin’, cussin’, cattle-rustlin’ dirty dawwwg…put GLUE ON MY SADDLE!”

Edith, his wife, asked him, “Henry, does this dress make me look fat?” *

Hank replied, “No,…It’s the fat that makes you look fat.”

He had special nicknames for his kids. Karen was “tin can cottontail the cottontail that willy wag.”

Mark was “Marcus Aurelius Vestpocket Pucius.”

Looking forward to some event, Hank would say, “the good lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”

Hank was proud to hail “from the hills of East Tennessee, home of Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Cordell Hull, Jellybean Birchfield and other great American statesmen.”

(I’ve posted a collection of Hank’s sayings on my blog, joelontheroad.com.)

Football was an undying love — even with Alzheimer’s he could correctly call a play. Hank was a high school star in his hometown of Knoxville, where his team once stood four other teams in succession, playing fresh teams a quarter apiece. Hank played something called “scatback,” and helped Knoxville knock off all four teams.

“Seven Touchdowns in January” is a movie of that January 1, 1948 Rose Bowl game. On the screen you can see a small but agile halfback — Hank — scooting around Southern Cal players and lofting the football to a Michigan player for one of those seven touchdowns.

This cartoon probably ran in 1947 and mentions the notable University of Michigan players, including HANK FONDE.

This cartoon probably ran in 1947 and mentions the notable University of Michigan players, including HANK FONDE.

For 10 years in the 1950s, Hank was head football coach at Ann Arbor High School, from 1949-58. In his first eight years, his team lost one game. They won two state championships. His overall record was 69 wins, six losses and four ties. Four of the losses occurred his last year, when he and his players knew he was leaving to coach at UM. From 1959-68, Hank coached at UM under Bump Elliott.  With Hank coaching defense and backs, Michigan won the Jan. 1, 1965 Rose Bowl game against Oregon State, 34-7. The two Michigan coaches in 1965 – Bump Elliott and Hank Fonde – were players on a victorious Rose Bowl team and later coached a team that won the Rose Bowl.

Back to that dockside rant in Canada. Here was this Ohio woman coming on with her nasty, Michigan-bashing comments, taunting an old man who would get lost in the middle of his sentences as he strove to find a word that eluded him.

Yet the Ohio woman wore on, making her crude remarks, getting no response from the old man in the maize and blue t-shirt.

Despite the Alzheimer’s, somehow Hank understood the gist of what the Ohio woman was saying.

As she paused for breath, Hank at last found words.

Amazingly, he put together a sentence rooted in a core memory, a recollection that even the brutal Alzheimer’s could not erase.

“I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

It was amazing to hear him utter a complete sentence, and to do it with such sternness, such authority.

The Ohio woman looked at Hank as if she finally understood that this old man was demented.

I have to admit, his comment puzzled me.

The Ohio woman went silent.

I thought about it:  “I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

What could Hank have meant?

The Ohio woman drifted away, maybe looking for her next victim, one with a green Michigan State shirt.

Several years later, I was visiting Hank’s son, my brother-in-law, Mark Fonde. Mark had one of the footballs Hank was given after games when he made crucial plays. The football is faded, worn and deflated. Hand-painted on one side, it says, “Michigan 7, Ohio 3.”

I asked Mark, “What does it mean?”

Mark said it was 1945, the last game of the season, and Michigan was, as usual, facing arch-rival Ohio State. World War II had only recently come to an end. This was a wartime team. Thirteen players, including Hank, were Navy trainees. Four were Marines. Four were discharged veterans. Michigan’s coach was the legendary Fritz Crisler, and the teams were called the “mad magicians” because it often was hard to tell exactly what they were doing when they drove for touchdowns.

HERO----Hank Fonde, 165-pound substitute right halfback, was the man of the hour yesterday as he scored Michigan's only touchdown against Ohio State...The Michigan Daily, November 25, 1945

HERO—-Hank Fonde, 165-pound substitute right halfback, was the man of the hour yesterday as he scored Michigan’s only touchdown against Ohio State…The Michigan Daily, November 25, 1945

In his book The Big One about the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry, Bill Chromartie wrote that Ohio scored a field goal for 3 points in the third quarter. The score stayed 0-3 until the last quarter. With eleven minutes remaining, Pete Elliott (Bump’s brother) threw a 25-yard pass to Hank at Ohio’s 19-yard-line. In two plays, Elliott brought the ball to the 10. Elliott was stopped on the next play. Fourth down, one yard for first down. The 85,132 fans in Michigan Stadium were on their feet. Hank crashed the Ohio line and took the ball five yards for the first down. Ohio was off sides on the next play. Penalty. The ball was on the one-yard line. Hank crashed into the end zone. The extra point was good. Final score: Michigan 7, Ohio 3.

The next day’s Michigan Daily headlined

Wolverines Beat Buckeyes, 7-3, in Finale

Fonde’s Fourth Quarter Score Decides Contest

According to Mark, Hank was knocked out during that play. He came to in the locker room, and someone handed him the ball.

Years later, I mentioned the Ohio State story to my older son, Adam. He reminded me of what granddad said to the Ohio woman.

Thanks to the Ohio woman, I understand what Hank meant when he told us, “I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

 

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

 

*Edith Fonde died in 2007; Hank Fonde died in 2009; Mark Fonde died February 28, 2015, one week before his older sister and my wife, Karen Fonde, died on March 1, 2015.

 

 

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Victoria Burton-Harris: ‘Yes, I would’

By JOEL THURTELL

I asked Democratic Wayne County prosecutor candidate Victoria Burton-Harris if she would investigate and prosecute public officials who illegally withhold records.

She replied:

Good afternoon, Joel.

Yes, I would.

This is simple and a part of my commitment to hold ALL people accountable.

Thank you.

Victoria

Here is my letter to her:

If a citizen were denied access to public records, and requested that you enforce Michigan’s 1931 Penal Code provision that government officials be prosecuted for withholding public records, and if you were Wayne County prosecutor, what would you do?”

Let me tell you how the current Wayne County prosecutor responded.

Oh, excuse me. My error. Kym Worthy did not respond to my request that she enforce the Penal Code when her fellow Democrat and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan lied about records and refused to release them to Wayne State University students in my Spring 2015 Investigative Reporting class.

I have lived in Wayne County for 35 years. I have owned a house and paid taxes in Wayne County for that amount of time. The prosecuting attorney could not spare postage to respond to my emails and letter asking her to investigate the matter.

The students were investigating a land swap deal between the city engineered by Mayor Duggan and billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun. Duggan or people in his office sought to stymie the reporters. My hope was that Prosecutor Worthy would make sure the mayor followed the law by disclosing the description of the deal.

The document was leaked by a city council member to the students. But that is not how it is supposed to work.

So I ask: If you become Wayne County prosecutor, would you stand up to Mayor Duggan or other public officials if they illegally refused to disclose public records? Would you, if need be, investigate and yes, even prosecute Mayor Duggan or other officials for denying citizens their rightful access to public information?

Thank you for your attention.

Yours truly,

Joel Thurtell

 

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Letter to Wayne County’s next prosecuting attorney (I hope!)

To Victoria Burton-Harris, greetings:

If a citizen were denied access to public records and requested that you enforce Michigan’s 1931 Penal Code provision that government officials be prosecuted for withholding public records, and if you were Wayne County prosecutor, what would you do?

Let me tell you how the current Wayne County prosecutor responded.

Oh, excuse me. My error. Kym Worthy did not respond to my request that she enforce the Penal Code when her fellow Democrat and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan lied about records and refused to release them to Wayne State University students in my Spring 2015 Investigative Reporting class.

I have lived in Wayne County for 35 years. I have owned a house and paid taxes in Wayne County for that amount of time. The prosecuting attorney could not spare postage to respond to my emails and letter asking her to investigate the matter.

The students were investigating a land swap deal between the city engineered by Mayor Duggan and billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun. Duggan or people in his office sought to stymie the reporters. My hope was that Prosecutor Worthy would make sure the mayor followed the law by disclosing the description of the deal.

The document was leaked by a city council member to the students. But that is not how it is supposed to work.

So I ask: If you become Wayne County prosecutor, would you stand up to Mayor Duggan or other public officials if they illegally refused to disclose public records?Would you, if need be, investigate and yes, even prosecute Mayor Duggan or other officials for denying citizens their rightful access to public information?

Thank you for your attention.

Yours truly,

Joel Thurtell

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CASS COUNTY ‘JUSTICE’

BY JOEL THURTELL

Police unions are taking the rap for defending lawbreaking cops.

Police chiefs argue that they are powerless to fire bad cops.

There was a time when top cops openly made the case for protecting bad police officers.

For my recent class on investigative reporting at Wayne State University, I assigned students to read an op-ed column I wrote for the South Bend Tribune in 1981.

Thirty-seven years ago, a black police chief and a white sheriff agreed that laws should be waived for lawbreaking cops. Both made the case aggressively and without apology of any kind.

However, we would never haveknown about the drunk Berrien County sheriff’s captain racing along a Cass County street blazing away with his pistol had not South Bend Tribune reporter Lyle Sumerix picked up police chatter on a police scanner. Lyle called me. I checked with the Case sheriff. No press release. But the sheriff admitted the incident happened.

Our Zoom class discussion was based on this reading: 

Equal justice under law doesn’t apply to police in Cass County SBT by JT 12-29-1981-1-1

Our discussion focused on these questions:

Why did this item run opposite the editorial page of the South Bend Tribune. Why was it not a news story?

How does this “Michigan Point of View” piece differ from a news report?

Could this story have been published as a news story?

What changes would it need to be a news story?

The original police incidents took place October 31 and November 9, in 1981. Can you speculate why it took nearly two months for this story to appear?

Did the sheriff issue a press release about the Berrien cop’s offenses?

How did reporters learn about the Berrien County officer’s offense?

How did reporters learn about the charges against the Cass County men?

Would the public ever have learned about the Berrien officer’s shooting spree from Cass County police?

Were the alleged offenses similar?

What is the police privilege claimed by the Cass County sheriff and Cassopolis police chief?

Is there a legal basis for the police privilege?

Would a regular news report compare cases in the way that this article does?

The Tribune op-ed makes two comparisons:

1) It compares police treatment of the Berrien deputy with the way police treated two non-police citizens arrested for similar firearms offenses.

2) It compares police treatment of a South Bend police officer’s one-car crash with the unequal treatment of the Berrien deputy.

Does the second Cass County case of unequal treatment of police reinforce the writer’s assertion that “equality is absent in Cass County”?

Is that a correct statement?

How might a reporter or other researcher reinforce that assertion?

What additional information would be needed to make such a generalization immune to rebuttal?

 

 

 

Posted in Adventures in history, Bad government, Joel's J School, Uncategorized | Leave a comment