Briefly Noted: October 2013

Even big bucks from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg couldn’t save gun-grabbing state lawmakers from the wrath of Colorado voters in a recall vote viewed as a national referendum on gun rights. At the eleventh hour the liberal billionaire, founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, gave $350,000 to “issue committee” Taxpayers for Responsible Government, which was created by Democratic fundraiser Julie Wells. The committee, which also took in $250,000 from billionaire Eli Broad, gave $420,000 to the retention campaigns of Senators Angela Giron (D) and John Morse (D), the Senate president. Giron and Morse were targeted for their recent support of tough new restrictions on guns. “One thing is clear from the Morse defeat: Mike Bloomberg is political poison,” said National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

Jeri L. Wright, daughter of Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was indicted in Illinois on charges of money laundering and lying to federal investigators as part of a grant-fraud case. The fraud scheme allegedly engineered by former Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans and her husband involves a $1.25 million state job-training grant for minorities. Wright cashed more than $27,800 in checks drawn on the bank account of We Are Our Brother’s Keeper, a state-funded nonprofit controlled by Evans, and then deposited $19,888 of that total into a personal bank account belonging to Evans and her husband, “knowing that the property involved in the financial transaction represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity,” according to the indictment.

Notorious left-wing activist Brett Kimberlin has filed suit in Maryland against five bloggers for writing about him. The five defendants are Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain), Aaron Walker (aka Aaron Worthing), W. J. J. Hoge (Hogewash), Ali A. Akbar (of the National Bloggers Club), and the anonymous blogger Kimberlin Unmasked. Kimberlin runs the Maryland-based nonprofit, Justice Through Music Project, which is funded by the far-left Tides Foundation. Kimberlin typically sues and otherwise harasses those who write critical articles about him, which would be less of a problem if he hadn’t spent almost 17 years in prison after being convicted of detonating eight bombs in a week-long terror spree in Speedway, Indiana, in 1978.

Fresh from five years of pushing the Left’s agenda, NAACP president Ben Jealous announced he is leaving his post at the left-wing interest group at year’s end. Jealous was the group’s youngest-ever leader, credited by supporters with infusing new life into the 104-year-old organization. During his time at the group it “shook off years of scandal and torpor, racked up victories in city halls and statehouses, and registered hundreds of thousands of voters,” while doubling its budget and staff, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Jealous said he’s going into the education field, whatever that means. It is unclear who will succeed Jealous at the group.

Self-described “communist” Van Jones is co-hosting the revived show “Crossfire” on CNN with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, and author S.E. Cupp. The former Obama green jobs czar co-founded a plethora of nonprofits including the Ella Baker Center, Color of Change, and Green for All.