Political phone call

I recently received the ultimate in insulting, stupid phone calls.

At dinner time, of course, a recorded, anonymous male voice said he had a political message for all Johnson County Republicans from the Committee for Fair Trials in America. He announced that if I held on he would tell me how Paul Morrison had been breaking the law as district attorney and why he should be arrested and impeached. I hung up in disgust.

It is getting harder and harder to remain a Republican in Johnson County. But it will be easy to decide how to vote until all of the dumb, insensitive political hacks are out of office.

Edmund Hughes
Leawood

Comments

[KS Meadowlark]

Apparently these calls have occurred in the Wichita area too.

Posted to the Wichita Eagle blog yesterday:
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2006/12/open_thread_14.html#comment-26820295

Re: http://fairtrialsinamerica.org/

This "Bumble bee" guy was making "push poll" calls over a year ago attacking Paul Morrison. I first heard about these phone calls in Nov 2005.

At that time I researched the matter and found no credible evidence for his attacks on Paul Morrison. At least the "Bumble Bee" didn't become an issue in the AG race.

At that time, a KC Star article gave some insight about the "Bumble Bee":

Judge sentences California man to 60 days in jail for blackmail

Kansas City Star
November 2, 2005
Author: DIANE CARROLL

Last year, Conrad J. Braun wore a bumblebee costume to court to demonstrate what he said was a sting operation against him by prosecutors.

On Monday, Braun, 56, appeared in Johnson County District Court wearing a yellow and black striped tie. But the campaign had little effect on Judge Steve Tatum, who sentenced Braun to 60 days in jail and two years of probation for blackmail.

The charge stemmed from a 2003 letter Braun sent to the husband of his former wife, threatening to expose the husband as a "child abuser" unless he agreed to stay away from members of the Braun family. Tatum said the child-abuse accusation had no merit.

Sara Welch, assistant district attorney, asked for 29 months in prison. Braun has been harassing his former wife since they split 15 years ago, she said, and has been convicted on at least four charges because of it. She said he had violated every previous probation.

Defense attorney Bob Thomas said Braun had refrained from contacting his former wife or her husband in recent months, as Tatum directed. Tatum said Braun's willingness to avoid that contact helped persuade him to offer probation.

Braun, who lives in San Diego, said his main motive has always been to maintain contact with his children, who are now grown.

Welch said that Braun continued his bumblebee campaign last week by leaving automated voice messages on some Johnson County telephones. Some residents complained, she said.

Braun said he did not mean to offend anyone. He said he came up with the bumblebee idea to interject some humor into what was a very difficult situation for him.

[jack]

engineer: Count yourself as blessed if you are never assualted by one of these dispicable phone calls. I got one.

I listened to it. It contains nothing even close to a "fact" that offers corroboration. It is, pure and simply, a smear campaign.

The only positive I got from listening to this drivel was, at the end, it offered a prompt to be taken off the list of people that would be called in the future. Considering the lack of ethics in the call, I doubt the prompt worked. But I can hope.

[Engineer]

I haven't heard the phone call, and I am dubious of Morrison having done anything outstandingly illegal. But if Hughes didn't hear the phone call, how does he know it was "stupid"?

[jack]

Ain't it funny how these phone calls started only AFTER people complained about the Reps annointing Kline DA.

Do they really think they can make Kline look better by doing a retro-active smear campaign against Morrison?