Charles Pierce: Obama needs to cut ties with Kevin Johnson

[madfloridian]

I agree wholeheartedly. Kevin is married to Michelle Rhee, major education "reformer", and he shares her views. Also some unpleasant things are coming out about him again.

President Obama Needs to Cut Ties with This Alleged Grifter

Charles Pierce says it much more colorfully than I would.

Subtitle:

There is nothing redeeming about Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and the president should cut him loose.

Getty Justin Sullivan

As I think we've mentioned several dozen times in this shebeen, the president's inexplicable sweet-tooth for the grifters, rounders, and mountebanks of the school "reform" movement is one of the most puzzling aspects of his years in office. One of the most egregious examples of this is the president's willingness to associate with Kevin Johnson, former NBA point guard, mayor of Sacramento, and husband of queen-bee grifter Michelle Rhee. On many levels, Johnson is a truly awful human being.

......Thanks to Deadspin's invaluable Dave McKenna, the onetime bane of evil-dwarf owner Dan Snyder in Washington, we are spelunking pretty regularly into the dark, dank depths of the muck that composes Kevin Johnson's political soul. What we find there is best left to the folks in the HazMat suits to handle. McKenna's most recent expedition has brought back the usual bagful of pure, foul awfulness.

Is there sexual misconduct? Judge for yourself.?

Kevin Johnson Wants Certain People To Not Talk About Kevin Johnson

It’s no secret that Kevin Johnson wants certain girls and women to keep what they have to say about him to themselves. Some of what the former NBA superstar and current scandal-magnet mayor of Sacramento, Calif. is willing to do to convince them is well-known; some less so. The more that comes to light, though, the more outrageous it seems.

Recently, one of Johnson’s attorneys tried to convince one of his many legal adversaries to stop talking to Deadspin—even going so far as to insert a “No Deadspin!” clause into a settlement offer.

This revelation comes as Johnson is in the worst spot of his three-decade run in the public eye. ESPN canceled the debut of Down in the Valley, a documentary that deified Johnson for having finagled $255 million in public money to keep the local NBA franchise in his hometown but totally ignored his well-documented dark side. The seamiest portions of Johnson’s back story involve the many allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that have come his way his way since the mid-1990s. Johnson has never been charged with a sex crime, but ESPN’s shelving the movie comes amid growing suspicions that a key reason none of the abuse claims made against him derailed his rise to power is that he made legal settlements that forced alleged victims to hush up.

....“People try to settle things because they don’t want things drawn out over long periods of time. They don’t want all this hashed out in public,” Maviglio told the Sacramento CBS affiliate last week, when asked why the mayor didn’t fight the allegations instead. “They want to settle things and move on with their lives.”

Making deals with those complaining, deals in which they can not mention any thing about him again.

The tactic of convincing accusers to stay mum appears to have served Johnson well through the years. Deadspin recently reported on Mandi Koba’s allegations that Johnson sexually abused her when she was a teenager. Koba met Johnson in Phoenix in 1995, when he was a superstar with the Phoenix Suns and she was a 15-year-old high school kid. The details of what allegedly ensued over the next several months are contained in a police report and in a video recording of police interviewing Koba. Cops at the time referred to it as an investigation into “a celebrity involved in a reported child molestation.”

Johnson is suing his own city using the name of a group that wants nothing to do with him.

Kevin Johnson Sues Sacramento, Hides Behind Group That Hates Him

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is suing his own city and a local reporter to prevent the release of his emails. But officials of a mayoral group that the former NBA star and controversy magnet claims to be representing in his lawsuit say they’re not on his side.

“We want nothing to do with Kevin Johnson,” says Vanessa Williams, executive director of the National Conference of Black Mayors, an Atlanta-based organization that Johnson listed as a co-plaintiff in his suit. “He’s not even a member. He tried to ruin this organization. I dare Kevin Johnson to find one person with this organization who supports him. Just one! Everybody with this organization hates Kevin Johnson. Nobody gave him permission to sue for us.”

Agree. President Obama doesn't to hang around with folks like that.

[AngryAmish]

1. Kevin Johnson is R Kelly without the pissing.

[Liberal_Dog]

2. I Will Second That

K & R.

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. I know Kevin Johnson, personally ...

though it has been more than 20 years, since we've been in tough ... that is not the person I knew.

[madfloridian]

4. Something like this makes me sad.

The rumors have been around for years. I think since he and his wife are so tied to ed "reform" it's finally getting more attention. There's no one winning in situations like this.

Unfortunately also I think more is coming out about the billions unaccounted for and unregulated in ed reform as Arne Duncan steps down.

So much damage has been done to public education.