Fighting the Media
King County GOP Chair Lori Sotelo has been getting a lot of unwanted press exposure recently for her astonishing behavior in conventions and caucuses, attempting to coerce delegates to elect her chosen meeting controllers, lying to sheriff deputies about meeting rules, stealing the delegate election ballots and literally evicting an entire caucus from the meeting location she was obligated, under the rules, to provide:
Ben Swann’s Lead story – Washington State-Lori Sotelo at District 37
King County GOP leader boots caucus outside after Ron Paul backers take over
Younger Republicans hedge their support of Romney at King County GOP Convention
Petition for the Removal of King County Republican Party Chairman Lori Sotelo
George Abrantes video for Infowars includes interview with Tamra Smilanich and the King County Convention GOP Leadership attempting to prevent him from filming.
Censorship Fail-2012 King County Convention
King County GOP’s Lori Sotelo disrupts caucus, citing Ron Paul
King County GOP’s Lori Sotelo disrupts caucus, citing Ron Paul ‘operative’
Lori Sotelo Goes After Republican Votes This Time
The 37th District Debacle made it on Wikipedia (!!)
Rensink’s article republished on World News website
KCGOP Chair Tries to End Caucus When Ron Paul Supporter is Elected as Chair
Fighting Republicans
Sotelo’s autocratic, dictatorial style has lost her three elections in a row in the 37th Legislative District: <http://wp.me/p3Rqg-579>. The long-term process to organize and lead a majority in the district who are no longer intimidated by her has been, in significant part, facilitated by a long-time conservative activist, former Republican nominee for the 2nd district County Council, Brian Thomas.
Brian, as it happens, is the one against whom the leadership of the KCGOP Liberal/Mainstream Establishment (Sotelo, Michael Young, Ross Marzolf, et al.) has fought a war of abusive process, attempted physical intimidation, and vicious, outright slander dating back to 2004: <http://wp.me/p3Rqg-hb>.
The Plot Thickens
In February, two weeks before the 2012 Precinct Caucuses, Thomas received a letter from chief Sotelo strategist and operative, Michael Young, informing Thomas that he had been accused under the Sotelo-Young infamous and never-before-invoked Blacklist Rule 19 <http://wp.me/p3Rqg-1j> but giving no specific “charges” whatsoever. Blacklist Rule 19 [that the Reagan Wing exposed more than five years ago (click on the above link)] pretends, amazingly enough, to give the elected members of Sotelo’s Executive Board the authority to overturn State Law and revoke public PCO elections, past and future (!!), for subjectively determined offenses.
In response to Thomas’ demands for disclosure of any charges or evidence against him, in March Young produced a letter dated October, 2011, signed by Sotelo, that Thomas had never seen.
The letter, full of slanderous accusations of Thomas, claimed to have been sent to hundreds of PCOs. In fact, it was addressed to every PCO in King County. The purported distribution of that letter, if it occurred, was a blatant violation by Sotelo of a Republican rule (below) on such things and if the distribution didn’t occur was a blatant fraud within their own, twisted, Blacklist process. One rule the letter violated (even if its contents were true):
A member or officer has the right to that allegations against his good name shall not be made except by charges brought on reasonable ground. If thus accused, he has the right to due process–that is, to be informed of the charge and given time to prepare his defense, to appear and defend himself and to be fairly treated.
Sotelo’s October epistle, purported to justify her previous discriminatory and illegal exclusion of MR. Thomas from a PCO meeting to which his precinct had elected him representative.
Brian Thomas responded to the smears and accusations by demanding discovery of the evidence against him.
They refused to respond.
SATURDAY Brian received an overnight FedEx summoning him to a hearing on the RESULTS of the obviously fabricated “investigation” (that excluded not only the disclosures and notices required by Republican Rule, but any attempt to interview Brian on the subject) to be held THIS EVENING.
Wow. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the light years by which this misses the target of due process, of even minimal notice. I expect we’ll be publishing the Republican Rules it violates, but there is little chance the Sotel-istas will read them.
The burning shards of the Death Star fly off in every direction.
Sotelo and Young, acting presumably out of pure animosity, violating at every turn their own rules, lash out blindly.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary… as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour
KIRBY WILBUR WHERE ARE YOU?
Kirby Wilbur and all state leaders should be taking steps or pressuring Lori and all others involved in such behavior to step down.
Or would this require their resignations as well?
The word is that some semblance of what you suggest has occurred on Facebook . . . at least that KW disavowed Lori’s recent actions . . . a far cry from asking for resignation. There is still the real distinction between the state and the county entities.
Sigh.
Could you point me toward it? I’m hearing nothing but crickets and a few veiled threats to some.
Roberta,
I don’t know who told you that Kirby made an attempt to disavow Sotelo’s actions. But if he did it’s pretty well hidden.There is nothing on his facebook page about it, nor is there anything on the WSRP facebook page about it. The only thing that Kirby has ever said about it happened when he was confronted in a discussion that took place on his facebook almost a week ago. The only thing he said was that it was county issue. He never once said that he didn’t condone what Lori did. I might add that that discussion has now been removed from his facebook page.
Kirby is a well polished rat, vote him out asap.
I just googled “Lori Sotello” and found she’s got her own page on Republicans for Black Empowerment website. http://blackgop.ning.com/profile/LoriSotelo
I wonder if they know she’s a rich white lady who lives in a 6,000+ sf mansion on Mercer Island whose husband owns a bank marketing to the Hispanic community?
Doug a little earlier today Jack Francis and I posted comments on Kirby Wilbur’s Facebook page on a link from a story about Ron Paul having a presence at the RNC convention. We both took Kirby to task about his lack of doing anything regarding the actions of Sotelo and the others during the caucuses and conventions. That whole story has been removed from Kirby’s Facebook page. The man has no spine.
Phil, I checked Kirby’s facebook page this morning and found both of your comments along with many others in agreement with yours.
Hi Lowtechgrannie,
I’m glad to see the comments and the link are backup. I just have to wonder what caused Kirby to put them and the link back up. Because you see they were gone,I went through his facebook page with a fine tooth comb about an hour after they were originally posted and they were nowhere to be found. Kirby must be really starting to feel the heat over this whole thing. Which is good