Hi y’all. Ang here.
There has been a lot of misinformation out there about what the bulk of our paper contains this month.
The cover photo tells it all.
Cover, October Special Edition
This is the story that we let sit for a year and a half while it was happening to us, and ultimately, we realized we shouldn’t have. But we were trying to be considerate of the judge that had the case; we didn’t want to appear as though we were trying to sway her one way or the other. Little did we know that someone else WAS going to eventually sway her…which is why she ceased being our judge back in June.
Brian James Fuckup O’Neill Junior is ranting and raving about this case because he stumbled upon it when he was flitting around the courthouse one day a couple of months ago. He’s been at the last two hearings, sitting on a bench in the courtroom exuding horrific fumes and grinning smugly like he has some kind of vast secret. Unfortunately, his unbalanced mental state has prompted everyone to disregard his rantings online, because he can’t tell a story straight to begin with, then he muddles it up with whatever hallucinations he has in his head. But we’re grateful for him, and we’ll tell you why: He “published” this story before we did. And we have screen caps of it. Which means this: if we’re dragged back into court for writing what happened to us, first-hand, over the past year and a half, and HE’S NOT, we have a massive lawsuit against the morons who dragged us into court. We find O’Neill a disgusting waste of human flesh who should be forced to give it back….but he has his uses.
The bottom line is this: Ever since we took our baby Ev in, we have been harassed mercilessly by a relentless group of people driven by one maniacal attorney who will stop at nothing to win his case. He has not won. He will not win. He will raise hell about this post, and this article, and the next two or three—however many it takes to tell it; that’s all up to them as to whether they want to raise hell and keep it alive—but he will not win. Because when we went through all of this, as we were going through it almost from day 1, we were being asked by the judge (and the subsequent judge who took her place), “Can you all just agree to not write about it?”
And our unequivocal response, every time, was “NO.”
Short version: Jack’s adopted stepdad—the guy with the pointy finger on the cover—took offense at the other side’s subpoenaing him to testify in the baby’s case and began trumping up all kinds of “things” we were doing…like “flipping him off” and “writing about him in the paper” (in 2009). He took out an emergency OP over it. The judge didn’t see an emergency and wouldn’t grant it. But they pushed for a plenary, adding things to their complaint like hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree…all of it fabricated. We didn’t do anything about it. It was all made up. We weren’t going to lie about them, after all…we had the evidence (see front cover; also videos we’re going to post when we get time).
But for whatever reason, Kim Harrell, the vapid judge in the case, after a year entered an OP against Jack, based on lies and against the evidence. We appealed, then learned that her husband was Jack Harrell, the arrogant former state trooper who was trying to get Richland County to buy unnecessarily-expensive police radios—that he was selling. We’d already been writing about him (actually, Jade had; it was one of her first big assignments) for months prior to Kim’s decision. We didn’t know he was her husband; in fact, Jade thought his name was “Harold,” not “Harrell.” when we learned who he was (during the Brandon Jenkins trial, when we were told the OP had been issued against Jack), we put two and two together and had her removed, but upheld our appeal. Because Judge Tom Sutton didn’t have enough evidence in front of him (there was no court reporter; we didn’t call for one; remember, we thought it was all frivolous, because we had the evidence), he couldn’t overturn her decision…but he asked us if we’d just elect to NOT WRITE ABOUT MEMBERS OF JACK’S FAMILY and the OP would go away.
We said NO.
Jack lost his FOID card (having not committed a crime, and having not committed any violence; in fact, having not done ANYTHING against the Illinois Domestic Violence Act, which is what OPs are based upon) and has the OP in place against him.
But we were told by Sutton: “There is nothing in this order that prohibits you from publishing. In fact, Prior Restraint precludes me from prohibiting it.” Prior restraint prevents government from banning expression of ideas prior to their publication. Yet that is what these people were seeking all along. They knew my husband isn’t violent and never has been. They knew he wasn’t a danger and never has been. They knew they weren’t threatened and never have been. That’s why they tried repeatedly to strike a deal with us. THEY JUST WANTED US TO NOT WRITE ABOUT THE BABY’S CASE, AND SUBSEQUENTLY, THE OP.
Yeah. Fuck you.
Well guess what?
They lost.
They are all public officials. Dan Howser is retired military/retired U.S. Postal Service/Retired Richland County Corrections/former candidate for coroner. Alexis Davis is currently employed by IDOC. Thomas Howser is currently employed by IDOC. Chuck Roberts is a county-paid defense attorney (when the court is desperate enough to use his “services”) and is the Richland County Republican Party vice chair/precinct committeeman/former Richland County State’s Attorney. We can say they eat feces in their cereal on a daily basis and there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it BECAUSE THEY’RE PUBLIC OFFICIALS. And they tried to suppress our right to publish via a backdoor way—not a libel suit, not a sources discovery suit—but a fucking OP. After THEY endlessly harassed US. All because of one sick bastard who was trying to use his friends to gain unfair advantage in an unrelated case.
If you want to know the entire story, with all the details, you’ll need to pick up this issue, which is a regularly-scheduled October Special Edition that has the first of two parts of election coverage, something we do every election year. The next issue will be out the last week of October, with the rest of the election info, and the second part of what we believe will be three presentations of this outrageous situation.
This wasn’t just about Jack. By refusing to “make a deal and it all just goes away,” we helped other independent media out there stand their ground and not be intimidated by PUBLIC OFFICIALS who want to whine and snivel because their feelings are hurt that the truth about them, or, more importantly, OPINION OF THEM, is being printed. We refused to sacrifice a “good” record in exchange for suppression that could be used as case law against another journalist. OPs aren’t the venue for these complaints. The court system can’t be abused this way, even though Kim Harrell did. Now, we get to tell just how abusive it was. We congratulate Tom Sutton on such clarification. Now, we ask that you support our stand. You out there are able to be citizen journalists too. Some of YOU might like to start a newspaper some day, devoid of corporate media who bows and scrapes to whatever government official pulls their strings. But you have the opportunity to keep independent media alive. Pick up a copy of Disclosure; just buying a copy a month helps keep the independent media alive. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel; join our online membership to read each current issue right here on your computer. But above all, tell people about us. We don’t care what you say; even if you say bad things about us, untrue things, it makes people curious and causes them to go plunk down $3 and find out what we’re saying, and that way, they find out we’re not “making that shit up.”
Being able to publish the truth is the bottom line here. Help keep it alive.