Anybody that has paid any attention realizes by now that I have soured quite a bit on the Clark County Republican Party under the Ron Paul Brown Shirt Republican Liberty Caucus due to the smears directed at me personally over my exposing Christian Berrigan’s sneaky, underhanded effort to stack PCO slots. Those smears were done from the shadows by people unknown, but connected to the CCGOP and refuse to come out in the open, leaving me with no one connected to the party that I can trust. Towards the top of that list of those I can no longer trust is County Commissioner David Madore, in large part for hearing of how many believe he funded these cowardly people and that he was caught undermining the efforts of this blog, explained at Prosper and Thrive? But, that wasn’t the first time Madore took something from me to put out as his. In 2012, when campaigning for the County Commission, Madore addressed the subject of tolls for the now comatose CRC project costing upwards of $8 each way and someone asked where that number came from, as if it were made up out of thin air. Madore posted the following on his facebook page in October 2012; I was particularly struck by the last words he wrote, “Does the truth matter?” What struck me about those words was when I looked closer at the video, I realized it was the video that I had spent many hours, days even researching, editing and cutting out from Leavitt’s 2009 campaign speeches found in CVTV archives and posted on my blog at $8 Tolls On the Interstate Bridge. I cut the short segment out of a larger compilation I had spent much time on to show how Leavitt flipped on us over his no tolls claims to get elected in 2009 and posted to YouTube over a year earlier. While the use of CVTV footage is public, what bothered me was seeing that the beginning of the video where I credited myself, this blog and what the video was addressing had been completely edited out and reposted to YouTube. I left a vague comment on Madore’s page of,
“Does the truth matter is a very good question. Does that include taking what someone else dug out, compiled and put together and remove all mention of who put it together to post as if someone else did all of the work?”
Within minutes, Madore rushed in posting,
“Lew Waters, I did not realize that you had done the work on this as I came across the clip in an email and asked our team to streamline it so viewers could jump right in on Leavitt speaking. I apologize for not crediting you for your work on this. Lew’s post can be seen here: https://lewwaters.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/8-tolls-on-the-interstate-bridge/
Since I did not say it was my creation in the first place, how did he realize so quickly that it was so that he could apologize and link back to where I had posted it, after he claimed he ran across it in an email? He returned to discussing the issue as if it was a settled matter and my response then was,
“I’m sorry too, David. The clip is clearly marked as coming from my blog leaving no doubt as to who put it together. How could you not realize who did it? This has lost you both mine and my wife’s support and vote.”
The following day that post was deleted, but not before I was able to get screen shots of it and the following was posted; Note his words,
“Yesterday, I posted a video here that stripped off the first 20 seconds of silence and jumped right into Leavitt speaking. I started with a YouTube video without even paying attention to what that first 20 seconds of text said.” “It is obvious now that I should have noticed that the video was Lew Water’s work. That was a glaring oversight on my part. Plagiarism should never happen. The bottom line is that it did due to my not paying attention.”
He also sent me a massage saying,
“Plagiarism is one of the most foolish offenses that violations of integrity. The error of noticing that the video clip was yours, is obvious now, but somehow in our crazy pace yesterday didn’t even show up on our radar. I will make it right, as I continue to consider you the most prolific and respected blogger in Clark County and deserving of great recognition.”
Additionally, after posting the apology and link back to my post, he again messaged me with,
“Lew, I just posted a link to your video clip of Leavitt on my public Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/DavidMadorePublic that includes an apology to you.” “Thank you for all that you do. If ever I step in something stinky, please know that it is not intentionally, but because I overlooked something that in hindsight is quite obvious.” “I will pay more careful attention in the future and love nothing better than giving credit where credit is due. And you sir, deserve our greatest thanks for all that you do.” (apparently not enough though, to out the smear merchants attacking from the shadows)
EDIT UPDATE: Jan 14, 2016 saw yet another explanation in a facebook message copied to me by Madore of,
“Back when we were all fighting the CRC, our team was posting whatever video clips we could that showed what was going on. We found a clip showing Leavitt campaigning for mayor by campaigning against tolls. The online clip, through Google, had a long silent section that we didn’t pay attention to. The clip was great and exposed Leavitt for the fraud that he is. I asked one of our team to just grab the relevant part of the clip and post it. And I posted it.”
“Shortly after, Lew Waters posted how we stole from him. I did not realize it was his clip and don’t remember if it said in the video that it was his or not. I assumed it was a CVTV or other public clip. I promptly took it down and called and apologized. Right after that, my wife and I happened to be at a Magenta Theater play where we saw Lew and his wife. I immediately greeted them both and again apologized. I thought that they forgave me as they were very nice. But it is clear that they did not.”
Madore’s memory is somewhat flawed as the chance meeting at the Magenta Theater was a good year to year and a half prior to the video incident.
I accepted the apologies, the ones above as well as one spoken to me personally when I attended his victory celebration dinner after winning the election. But seeing that once again, as I outlined in my post Prosper and Thrive? he undermines my blogging efforts; I am forced to withdraw that acceptance. As stated then, I never intended this blog to make me wealthy or even ‘comfortable’ financially, but was hoping to build my reputation and interest as a means to syndicate and supplement my meager social security. Those hopes are now seen to have been for naught, given the smear campaign by those elements of the Clark County Republican party that many believe he funded to take control of the party and his own efforts at undermining my effectiveness. Like many, I placed my trust in David Madore and have defended him numerous times, both on the comments at the Lazy C, facebook, in person with people I spoke to and on the posts on this blog. Apparently, all for naught as he has no aversion to stepping on people to build his own glory and notoriety. Madore, as County Commissioner authored and pushed through what he called his “Integrity Resolution.” But from where I am sitting, it is hollow as I see little integrity in him. I know too that many will not look favorably on these posts on Madore, I will be accused of sour grapes for some reason, or bought off, maybe even labeled a traitor to some cause that I know nothing about. But in the end, I’ll remind you of David Madore’s own words once left under an article at the local paper,
“We should boldly speak the truth without apology, even when it is negative.”