July 19, 2006
Ward 3 Weirdness Continues
It's been a year since Jonathan Rees launched his quixotic campaign for the Ward 3 seat on the D.C. Council. And what a year it has been.
For those of you new to the Rees saga, here's a brief recap -- Rees has existed primarily online, running his campaign by using numerous online aliases (28 on DCist alone; upwards of 80 on other blogs, listservs, and messageboards) to promote his qualifications and attack those of his opponents. So notorious has his political spamming become that there hardly exists an online forum where his comments are still welcome.
Rees has proven himself to be quite the vicious online fighter, using any and all means possible to attack anyone who challenges him. His has obsessively focused his sights on competitor Sam Brooks, using a mix of libel and exaggeration to accuse him of everything from not actually living in Ward 3 to violating federal law to being mentally ill. He has similarly accused DCist of being both a franchise of the Church of Satan and a tool of a foreign government.
And the saga has continued.
Most recently, Rees, acting through a member of his campaign staff, Ramon Rivera (who also uses the online handle "Lucifer"), has started creating blogs to attack a number of District residents -- and has done so in extremely vulgar ways. In one blog, Rivera takes aim at Bob Summersgill, a former president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, calling him a "super fag" and accusing him of being a pedophile. Rivera writes:
Bob Summersgill is another good reason why America needs to shut down the GLBT community and their evil and immoral life-style, and the forcing of it upon good people.In another blog (which was taken down recently), Rivera attacks Suzanne Jackson, a law professor at GWU who once represented Rees' ex-wife in a divorce proceeding. Titled "Bull Dyke Jackson," the blog states:
Professor Jackson is why we as Americans must fight to stop GLBT Rights. Professor Jackson is a hard core Lesbian with an extreme hatred for men, and before coming to GWU Law School, she devoted herself to doing all she could to destroy the lives of Latino men because their ways just weren't her ways.A former version of the blog was signed by Rees himself, where he called Jackson a "man hater" and "professional c**t."
Rivera, much like Rees himself, is something of a mystery. He has been closely linked to the name Roy Stewart, who shares a home address with Rees. Stewart and Rivera have also been linked by IP address and Yahoo! profile to Gloria Gutierrez, a former Rees activist whose real-world existence could never be confirmed. Neither Rees nor Rivera agreed to comment when emailed by DCist.
All told, this on-going weirdness isn't anything new for Rees. But it has progressively gotten more and more vicious, and the net he has cast in search of fictional opponents has grown wider and wider. And in a race as crowded as is Ward 3's (9 people are set to appear on the ballot for the September Democratic primary), there is always that chance that Rees could sneak into office with a small number of votes. Imagine how much fun Council-member Rees would be!
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I know Suzanne personally and she is a wonderful person! How dare he attack her like that! As if reading his comments on DCist weren't enough, now I hear he's defaming people I know!
Wow, he sounds like a slightly more offensive candidate than many national Republicans.
What amazes me is the brazen nature he spams and attacks on the Washington Post's DC Wire blog. I cannot for the life of me understand why they are allowing him to contiunue on their servers, particularly when he has been banned in just about every other forum imagineable.
It is great fodder and entertainment, but enough is enough. It is time for the media to expose this nut for what he is.
It is bad enough that he is probably going to appear on the ballot. I guess this is enough to make his online antics, his homophobia (and corresponding latency), his anti-female and otherwise mostly wacky views to be exposed.
The stuff on Ms. Jackson is amazing. It is funny to see his impersonations of her on DC Pages and on the Tenleytown Yahoo Group. I didn't make the connection until he posted the blog about her.
It certainly didn't help matters when the idiots at the InTowner wrote a glowing endorsement of him.
The InTowner = real estate daisy chain
I think Rees is a joke and a distraction, and that continuing to post entries about him would qualify as trolling if he and all his IP addresses weren't already banned from DCist comments.
At the same time, however, I think there are some fairly strong accusations made in this post and am curious about how thoroughly they've been checked out. Can you be sure that the blogs in question were created by Ramon Rivera (or Rees), and not someone trying to stir shit up or an opponent? How exactly does one "sign" a blog, and how did "he" (meaning Rees) say things about Jackson on a blog that you say was written/created by Rivera? Given all the uncertainty and bullshit associated with this whole fiasco, why not just ignore it and hope that after the primary it all goes away?
Wow. What a nut Rees is. The fact that he hides behind a keyboard and shuns the public isn't surprising.
He seems to be at it 24/7. Does the guy even have a job?
Nate,
Good question. Once you follow Rees' rants for a while, you start to pick up on a few trends. His language is extremely noticeable, and as soon as any of these blogs go live (whether or not written by him), he emails members of the media (in many cases me) to let them know of the blogs' existence.
I really can't wait until September 13, when this will all hopefully end.
Nate,
One more thing: the first blog about Jackson was signed by Rees. It was then changed to Ramon Rivera, but then again, we're not even sure if he's real or not.
"Gloria Gutierrez" used to spell "her" name Guiterrez until someone pointed out the more usual spelling.
I registered to vote just so I could vote for anyone but Rees. That only narrows it down to 7 or 8 Democrats who insist they will improve our schools.
I for one am planning to vote for Mr. Rees. I think he is more capable than any other candidate out there of singlehandedly bringing down DC's government, and hopefully the resulting anarchy will reduce housing prices enough for me to be able to afford a home.
A vote for Rees is a vote for anarchy!
It's too bad that neither the Washington Post or the Washington Times has done an investigative story on Rees. There's a lot to report. If they had, Rees might not have even gotten on the ballot.
Hats off to DCist for doing a great job, keeping people informed about Jonathan Rees' weird and awful activities.
Yeah, Rees has a very distinctive syntax. It's not obviously insane at first glance (at first it appears only Hannity-esque, i.e. more stupid than nuts) but actually attempting to follow his logic reveals that he's pretty well unhinged, and after one or two posts you can spot it right away.
Thanks for bringing this up here so we don't have too.
Stop insulting Rees! He's a great, great man!
lOVE,
The Society of Sociopathic Internet Trolls
Illiterate Crackpot Chapter.
PS:
Hey, Ward 3Blogger. Run spellcheck on the latest entry
After following Rees' online behavior for much of the last year, I no longer feel the phrase "pure evil" to be hyperbole. His campaign has been the most despicable, sleaze-soaked one I've ever witnessed.
Anyone But Rees in September, y'all. Tell your Ward 3 friends. With so many candidates in the primary, even a few accidental votes for this psychotic creep could result in the unthinkable. He's a dangerous person. And what he's done online is only the tip of the iceberg, from what I hear. Nuff said.
Has anyone seen Rees' campaign literature? It's around Ward 3 and looks like something a candidate for middle school class president might produce. Pathetic.
In any event, this guy is seriously nuts and scary. From dozens of aliases to false employment identification cards to nonexistent campaign staff -- psycho is the best way to describe Jonathan Rees.
Tom Knott at The Washington Times wrote the best column about Rees: http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060524-112241-2633r.htm
My favorites: Rees claiming that he's Italian and thus "Latino"; Rees claiming never to have been divorced; Rees claiming to have run "three successful campaigns in cities bigger than DC". Rees claiming to have been named one of the Three Fastest Kickers of 1998 by the World Kickboxing Association; Rees claiming to have been a child actor in the Ajax commercial wherein a white knight appears on a horse and pulls down a child's pants.
These are the funny ones. But there's nothing funny about the rest of the sick and despicable stuff he's been up to. Nothing at all.
Wait, are you all saying that crazy people shouldn't be allowed on the ballot? He's nuts, sure. But he's got as much right to run and do his version of crazy as Katherine Harris has hers. It's a democracy folks. And as the "Facts of Life" told us: you take the good and you take the bad.
He has a right to run, but he also has a responsibility to be called out for his actions, and be questioned for the myriad lies he has told which include, but are not limited to:
-his qualifications for holding a council seat;
-clarifications on the discrepencies about his family (was that zero, two or three kids, and are the girls, whose names might be Anita, Gabriella or Antonella, he's not sure) twins, or of different ages, as he has posted on DCist and elsewhere;
- his professional employment history;
-his educational background;
-the plagerism which has been demonstrated on DC Wire;
- the character of his "campaign staff" which, if we believe "they" exist, have been posting vitriolic, vulgar and false information about both public and private citizens.
Coming clean on the items above will help pave the way to make any sort of analysis of his "platform". Until the electorate can believe him on basic background issues, the rest of it is simply noise.
He is the candidate. He is the public figure. The onus is on Mr. Rees to start telling the truth. He is otherwise relageted to the politically insignificant.
Of fer cryinoutloud...no one said he couldn't RUN.