DUmmie FUnnies 07-01-05 ("Two Cases of Bile"--- DUmmies Discuss Scamdy Article)

It has been somewhat quiet on the Andy Stephenson front during the past month of June but here it is the beginning of July and the Scamdy scandal is breaking out all over again. The latest outbreak is in the Seattle Weekly magazine as you can see in this ARTICLE titled, “Two Cases of Bile” which is also the title of this DUmmie THREAD discussing the article. I urge everybody out there to read this Seattle Weekly article in that it provides great laughs in the Whitewash Dept.. Most particularly this line from the article, “’He has pancreatic cancer,’ says Johnson.” So is Johnson some qualified physician finally giving us assurance of the true nature of Scamdy’s condition? Nope. Johnson was a nurse practitioner who became a primary care provider for Scamdy. I think I have problems with my kidneys so I guess I’ll be consulting a nurse practitioner for a diagnosis. As usual the gullible DUmmie weepings (sans any commentary from Pied Piper Pitt or Skinner) is in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wondering if the Scamdy fraud trial will take place in Washington state or Maryland, is in the [brackets]:

Good article from a good paper. Would freerepublic raise 50,000 dollars if one of them needed it? I doubt it.

[Gullible article from a gullible paper. The Free Republic would NOT allow the recipient of medical funds to receive $50,000 without the slightest bit of accountability as your gullible Skinner has done.]

It would never occur to them to do so Personal responsibility and all that sort of thing!

[Personal ACCOUNTABILITY and all that sort of thing. Skinner allowed DUmmieland to be scammed by a con artist ONCE AGAIN.]

[And DUmmieland is certainly an amateur act thanx to Skinner. It’s gonna be a lot of fun watching both Skinner and Pied Piper Pitt sweating bullets on the witness stand during the Scamdy trial.]

think someone else said this - it was really DU's finest hour. The freepers must be jealous.

[The Freepers are jealous that you put on a better comedy act than anything they could come up with. The way you DUmmies were so easily SCAMMED is a comedy act that is hard to top.]

[Pied Piper Pitt certainly does since his worrying over this scandal has caused him to stay awake since April.]

I don't get it. How can this Grady guy claim that Andy "defrauded" anyone if the money was given freely and voluntarily for a medical emergency that has been confirmed and surgery that has been performed?

[Um…Duhhhh!!! Maybe because Scamdy claimed to have pancreatic cancer in order to raise big bucks when he really suffered from something different which did NOT necessitate surgery at Johns Hopkins.]

[It’s simple. She scammed you DUmmies and then her assistant, Andy, turned around and scammed you AGAIN.]

I don't get it, either...I believe the ones of us who contributed to Andy were more concerned with getting his surgery done in time to worry too much about how professional the fund raising was.

[Yeah, it’s really “tough” to simply have a third party, such as Skinner, collect the money for Scamdy.]

Hold the flames, but… Something about the article doesn't quite read right, although the generally sorry state of medical reporting could be the cause. My cousin died of pancreatic cancer a few years ago and I spent weeks on the Internet trying to find something, anything, that offered hope. But pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed only after it has already metastasized. No one has ever been confirmed as surviving metastasized pancreatic cancer. Never heard of treating it with radiation, and I think that surgery is fairly rare. Often the only treament is a chemo protocal know as Gemzar(sp?), which only provides comfort, not recovery.

[And this DUmmie WINS an Andy Stephenson Kewpie Doll for having a brief moment of mental clarity for realizing that something is not quite right about this article.]

don't believe his has metastasized and when it comes to pancreatic cancer, they are continuing to make strides. His tumor was encapsulated.

[Skinner has been encapsulating any mention of “pancreatic cancer” in DUmmieland and tombstoning it.]

Fred Grady has been exposed as a Moran and that will follow him for the rest of his life. Does the idiot still have his web site up?

[Yes. http://www.scamdy.com. Visit it and you might learn something. And the threads in the discussion forum are NOT locked as Skinner tends to down when “pancreatic cancer” is mentioned too much in DUmmieland.]

I suppose now that it is proven Andy has cancer they will accuse us of stealing a tumour and implanting it in Andy.

Because the Freepers want Andy to die. I'm now convinced that that is the reason.

[Actually we want Andy to LIVE and testify In court as to how easily he scammed the DUmmies with the aide of the incredibly gullible Skinner and that hapless cheerleading fool, Pied Piper Pitt.]

Why would someone pay for a site just to attack Andy and his friends? That is what blew me away.. that this accountant fellow (freeper) would actually spend his own money to take out a website like that. Does that man not have any clients? Hope his clients realize what a putz he is and what a bad head for money he apparently has.

[Maybe he wants the world to know how easily conned the DUmmies were by scam artist Andy.]

Do you think this article will help shut them up? It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Andy really does have cancer, did have surgery and is still recovering. You would think this would be the end of scamdy.

[Only the end of the beginning of Scamdy. Now the fun begins as more spotlight is shined on Andy’s scam. As to it proving “beyond a shadow of doubt” that Andy had pancreatic cancer, are you in the habit of turning to nurse practitioners for a medical diagnosis of something that could be life threatening?]

Fantastic journalism. Obviously this kind of journalism can only be done these days at an independent weekly, since it doesn't manufacture moral equivalence between Andy and the jackals who accuse him of faking his cancer. The reporter actually did the hard work of seeing for himself. My best to Mr Stephenson for a speedy recovery.

[That reporter deserves a Pulitzer Prize for going no further than a nurse practitioner to obtain a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer for Scamdy.]

I think I may just go visit Stanton. Who wants to come along? When we get there we can play baseball. So bring your bat! We could also go pheasant hunting along the way, so bring your shotgun and some birdshot. And then we can take Mr. Grady out for coffee and settle our differences in a civilized manner. Sounds like a fun trip, no?

[Sounds like a death threat, yes? And it WILL be used as evidence at your trial, Dummie benburch. I repeat, DUmmie benburch.]

They keep harping on the "Three Questions" Well here's my answer WHO THE F*CK ARE YOU TO DEMAND AN ANSWER TO ANYTHING YOU FREEPER SCUMBAGS?!?! WHAT DOES ANDY OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION FOR?

”Another group appears to be people who are rightfully concerned about Internet scams.”

Left-Wing Web site? whoever wrote that doesn't read this site very carefully...

f*ck cancer, and f*ck freepers... I didn't know Andy had had complications. I hope he is feeling and doing better soon, and isn't listening to all the negative crap. I don't care one bit that this wasn't done the usual way, it was an unusual circumstance, with little to no time to plan. I was happy to donate, and still am happy I did.

I'm not completely up to date on what's going on, but I do know that I stumbled upon a post by WilliamPitt that was demanding answers from Andy because, according to him, the whipple procedure was not done. Has the story changed?

[Pied Piper Pitt “cleared” it up by posting a FAX document from late April claiming that Scamdy’s “pancreatic cancer” surgery was scheduled for the week of May 23 even though at the time of the FAX, the surgery was scheduled for early May and wasn’t rescheduled until AFTER the FAX was sent. Oh, and this is one big reason why Pitt has been completely SILENT about Scamdy recently. I notice that Pitt didn’t even sign on to Scamdy’s get well card in DUmmieland.]

The latest outbreak is in the Seattle Weekly magazine as you can see in this ARTICLE titled, "Two Cases of Bile"

PJ, I think it would be very helpful for this DUFU to have the article itself right here at the start of the thread. Here it is:

SEATTLE WEEKLY
July 6 - 12, 2005

Two Cases of Bile

Voter activist Andy Stephenson's pancreatic cancer has generated both love and hate on the Internet.

by George Howland Jr.

The Internet saved Andy Stephenson's life. In May 2005, the voting-rights advocate's online community came together and raised $50,000 in 11 days to pay for surgery to treat Stephenson's pancreatic cancer. Now, the World Wide Web has spawned a bizarre campaign that accuses the nationally renowned activist of faking his illness.

Stephenson, 43, who could pass for talk-show host Conan O'Brien's brother, became active on voting-rights issues in 2004 when he learned about the security problems with electronic voting. A resident of North Seattle, Stephenson frequented the left-wing Web site Democratic Underground (www.democraticunderground.com). This virtual community led him to Bev Harris of Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org), a Renton-based, muckraking activist dedicated to exposing the flaws in our nation's voting infrastructure (see "Black Box Backlash," March 10, 2004).

Stephenson brought an in-your-face activism to what had been a sleepy topic—imagine a combination of ACT-UP and the League of Women Voters. He loved to go into elections officials' offices with his camcorder blazing, demanding information on obscure aspects of voting systems and software. In 2004, he ran for Washington Secretary of State as a Democrat against Republican incumbent Sam Reed, promising to clean up the election system, only to drop out before the filing deadline. That same year, he also began working with Harris on her national campaign to make voting more secure. In the process, he established his own national reputation as a voting-rights activist. Stephenson says eventually he and Harris had a falling out, and they are no longer on good terms.

None of these setbacks discouraged Stephenson from pursuing his goal of improving the nation's voting system. In January 2005, he went to Washington, D.C., as part of a grassroots lobbying effort on behalf of the Voting Integrity and Verification Act, sponsored by Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. While in D.C., Stephenson became ill with what he assumed was food poisoning. He flew back to Seattle and noticed his skin had turned yellow. He went to the Country Doctor Community Health Clinic on Capitol Hill and received treatment from Karen Johnson, a nurse practitioner, who became his primary care provider.

Months of illness and diagnoses followed. In April, Johnson says the cause of his illness was determined. "He has pancreatic cancer," says Johnson. After researching the best options for his care, Stephenson chose to have his surgery performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. "It's the best of the best," says Johnson. "Andy does his research right."

There was one little problem: Stephenson didn't have health insurance or much money. He says the operation cost $50,000, and Hopkins demanded payment in full before the operation for an out-of-state, uninsured patient. (A Hopkins spokesperson would not elaborate on the bill, citing concern for patient confidentiality.)

Enter San Francisco's Elisabeth Ferrari. She has never met Stephenson in person, but had gotten to know him through postings on Democratic Underground. When she became aware of his need, she decided to raise as much money as she could through an Internet appeal. On Friday, April 28, she put out a fund-raising request on Democratic Underground. Other progressive outlets and activists including blogger/author William Rivers Pitt, Sirius Satellite radio's Thom Hartmann, Air America's Mike Malloy, and numerous Web sites picked up the fund-raising message. By Monday, May 9, she had raised all $50,000—most in small donations of $25 or less. "Democratic Underground has 60,000 subscribers," says Ferrari. "Andy has many, many friends there. He is a people magnet."

It was a remarkable achievement and a real testament to the power of Stephenson's activism. Country Doctor's Johnson confirms that Stephenson had a Whipple procedure—sometimes called the "Olympics" of surgery because of its duration and difficulty—at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the end of May. The surgeon removed a "golf-ball-sized tumor" from his pancreas, according to Johnson. Stephenson came back to Seattle to recover and prepare for his oncology treatment. Says Johnson, "He needs chemo and radiation probably."

Then came the backlash. The origins of the rumors are murky, but the basic theme was Stephenson was a scam artist who didn't have cancer. The rumor spread like a computer virus across the Internet and soon vitriolic postings were popping up all over the place.

The backlash falls into a couple of general categories. One group appears ideological in nature: Conservatives are attacking Stephenson because he's a progressive activist. "The right wing just went crazy," says Air America's Malloy. "This is one of the sickest things I've ever seen."

Another group appears to be people who are rightfully concerned about Internet scams.

Fred Grady, an accountant from Stanton, Neb., straddles both groups. He pays for a site called Scamdy.com that alleges Stephenson defrauded people. He learned of the controversy through a conservative Web site, Free Republic (www.freerepublic.com), that has an ongoing flame war with Democratic Underground. He is also very concerned that Stephenson's fund-raising was not done properly.

The fund-raising effort for Stephenson was the work of amateur activists, not professional charities. Spontaneous mutual aid has both good and bad characteristics. Stephenson's friends did not provide the kind of checks and balances that are associated with mainstream philanthropy. For instance, the money went directly to Stephenson—there was no board of trustees controlling a third-party account and carefully documenting expenditures and donations.

Meanwhile, Stephenson was readmitted to the hospital because of postsurgical complications on Wednesday, June 22, and remained there at press time on Thursday, June 30. Stephenson says Medicaid is now covering him, so his medical bills are not a cause of concern.

I visited Stephenson in his hospital room at Virginia Mason Medical Center and listened to surgeons, a resident, and nurses discuss his cancer with him.

His spirits rise and fall on an hourly basis with the news of his condition. Through it all, he pushes his political issues, railing to me about decisions at the King County Elections Division.

His current diagnosis and treatment are unclear as the doctors struggle to figure out how best to help him. It is very clearly, however, a matter of life and death. "I am prepared for whatever the outcome is," Stephenson says. "I want to live—I don't want to die—but if not I've left a legacy."

ghowland@seattleweekly.com

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