The Facts Don't Lie

But Hallburn Does -
Election Chicanery Exposed



Last month Hallburn got busted once again. This time for running campaign ads without the candidates' permission.

He illegally ran unpaid ads for both Natalie Tennant and Betty Ireland's campaigns for the gubernatorial nomination.



PutnamEYES.com said that the truth would come out when the first primary campaign financial reports were released.
And it has.
The truth is that Halburn lied.
Again.
Neither Ireland nor Tennant's reports lists PutnumLive as an expenditure or an in-kind contribution.

The Tennant ad even had the "Paid For by the Elect Natalie Tennant Committee" disclaimer. Which, if it was not a paid ad, is a violation of election law.

Campaign reports must contain all expenses.
An advertiser cannot donate ads to a candidate unless a value is declared and the donation is accepted by the candidate.PutnamEYES.com's prediction came true when Halburn claimed that unnamed supporters of the candidates only paid for the ads through February 28th. He says he doesn't run free advertisements.
Another lie which PutnamEYES.com has disproved.
Even Halburn admitted that he runs free ads. He just can't remember all the lies he's told.

Funny though, when the Secretary of State's Election Fraud Division got involved, the ads disappeared.
Halburn's explanation doesn't hold water. No politician buys an ad for one month, 3 months before an election. Especially to reach Halburn's 29 readers.

Next, he claimed ads were paid for by candidate supporters who plan to run them again when they get funds. He says no one ordered them removed.

Neither of these campaigns are hurting for money. The fact is, neither campaign sees the need for blog advertising.

He claims that political ads run $300 a month. Which is another lie.
Expenditure reports show that they cost anywhere between 25-200 dollars a month, when he decides to charge for them at all.
Some candidates pay nothing. Reports show that Brady Paxton for example, paid zero despite his ad running there for at least a month.
A Dale Martin ad that appeared before the general election in November apparently ran for free as well. It does not appear in any of his expenditures.
Both ads contained the "paid for" disclaimer.

Here are the numbers for the 2010 election cycle:

Brady Paxton
No expenditures since 11/5/08

Dale Martin
5/24/10 - ad - $100

Cathy Larck
4/25/10 - monthly ad - $125
5/11/10 - monthly ad - $125
11/14/10 - monthly ad - $175

Justin Black
5/7/10 - Advertisement - $100

Marge Carpenter
3/31/2010 - Advertising - $200
4/25/10 - Advertising - $25
5/3/10 - Advertising - $200

Debra Girimont
6/13/09 - ad test - $150

Additionally, in the 2008 Supreme Court race, Halburn ran an ad for now Justice Menis Ketchum that didn't appear on Ketchum's expenditures. Again containing the "paid for" disclaimer.

The candidates for county offices, Debbie Phillips, W.D. Arthur, William Legg & Kathie Crouse, are not required to file reports , so we can't tell if any of those candidates actually paid for their ads.

So, the bottom line here is that Halburn ran the Ireland and Tennant ads completely unsanctioned, without any permission or compensation from the campaigns.

Illegal?
Probably.
Unethical?
Certainly.
Neither is new for Mark Hallburn.

The sad thing about this whole episode is that both candidates knew these ads were running there but took no steps to have them removed. If neither of these two women weren't willing to stand up to a bully like Halburn, how are they going to stand up for the people of West Virginia on the really tough issues that face our state?

ANY politician that advertises with PutnumLive.com is not fit to hold office.


RELATED STORIES: 

Halburn Endorses Ireland 
Halburn Refuses To Remove Political Ad 
Halburn Ordered To Remove Ads!
Halburn Continues to Prevaricate In Election Ad Controversy
 

Halburn Opposes Energy Conservation

UTILITY NEWS

CONTINUING VENDETTA DISGUISED AS NEWS STORY



The WV Public Service Commission has Granted American Electric Power a one half of 1 percent rate increase.

AEP says this increase will amount to about 50 cents a month and will be used for conservation programs.

The extra money will to go toward the cost of home energy audits, more efficient light bulbs and other efforts to reduce electricity consumption.

Of course, Mr Credibility & Respect, Mark Halburn is immediately against it.
Why?
50 cents a month will deprive him of a candy bar.

He has no problem with wasting our precious energy resources. He is against people finding out where their houses are leaking air and weatherizing them. He is against people using energy efficient bulbs in their homes. Mark Hallburn wants people to use MORE electricity.

How else can it be explained?
He obviously wants to put more money in the pockets of AEP.

C'mon dummy, you ought to be applauding this move. Less energy use means less money for AEP.
Hah! Stick it to the man!

But when your second wife pays the bills it doesn't really matter, does it Halburn?

Halburn thinks the company should cut executives' salaries and eliminate retirement pay. He also believes elected officials should serve with no pay and retired people shouldn't be able to work. He is clearly a Bolshevik and biased against the elderly.

We would suggest to Halburn that he is jealous that someone is making more money than him. Why don't you get a real, full time job that has retirement benefits, or any benefits for that matter, fartsack?
Both of these gentlemen worked their entire careers for these companies and are entitled to their retirements. They are also entitled to take another job or hold elected office.
Neither of which, we would like to point out, you will ever be able to do.

Nobody likes to pay more, but with energy costs increasing every day, utilities must be able to recover their costs. It's simple economics.
But we wouldn't expect someone who's filed bankruptcy twice in the last 15 years to understand that. You can file again in 2011, so start getting those papers ready, you irresponsible fuck.

This is yet another example in a long string of Halburn & PutnumLive.com trying to pass off the thinly veiled vendettas against Joe Haynes and AEP as news stories. He's a liar, hack and a bully.

Meanwhile, here at PutnamLIES.com we will continue to advocate energy conservation. Because everyone, including retirees and government employees, has a duty to conserve.The people of Putnam County aren't stupid, they know that in the long run saving energy saves money.

Halburn is certainly feeling the heat in the community. Let's turn it up on him.

Setting The Record Straight

Way back in August PutnamEYES.com printed a story entitled My Bias is Showing...Again. In it we revealed that Halburn DELIBERATELY misrepresented that Debra Girimont, a candidate for the House of Delegates, was a sponsor of the Putnam County Tailgate Party when she was merely a participant.PutnamLIES.com knew at the time that Mrs Girimont was not at fault, she was yet another victim of the unscrupulous publisher of PutnumLive.com, Mark Halburn. He was merely using her appearance there as a means to further his own political agenda and satisfy a personal vendetta.

Now the time has come to set the record straight. PutnamLIES.com has obtained a letter which was sent to Halburn by Girimont.

"January 12, 2010

Dear Mark,
After reading your article on candidate filings I felt the necessity to contact you about the article.
Since I declined an interview with you on Monday evening 1/11/2010 the only statement that you should have put in quotes from me is that "I want a better West Virginia".
Your story was written as if you had conducted an interview with me. If you had noted that the quotes you printed were taken directly from my web site, I would not have a problem with what you printed.
I might also add that this is the second time that I have been misrepresented on your web site. The first time being when you printed that I was a sponsor of the Putnam Tailgate Party. When I asked for a printed retraction, you only deleted the statement from the article but did not make it clear to your readers that I never represented myself to you or anyone else as a sponsor of the Tailgate Party.
Therefore, I am asking that you clarify to your readers that what you printed was taken from my web site and not from an interview.
If you wish to ask and print legitimate questions about my campaign, I will accept your questions in writing only and my responses will be in written form.
Sincerely,
Debra Girimont
Candidate for the House of Delegates, 14^th District"

In August we called on Ms. Girimont to demand a correction. It has now become clear that she did just that. Unfortunately, Halburn did not cooperate with that request.
Over a week went by before Halburn quietly changed the wording, but he refused to acknowledge that Ms. Girimont never told him or anyone else that she was a sponsor and no retraction or clarification was ever printed.Then, last week Halburn asked for an interview with her and was turned down. He once again misrepresented the facts and printed quotes that made it appear that he had interviewed Ms. Girimont when he did not. He was forced to change those misleading words in the story.Now, due to these continued gross misrepresentations of the facts, Ms. Girimont will no longer respond to anything but written questions from Halburn and will only respond in kind.

This is one "People's Voice" letter you won't see printed in his Letters to the Publisher.

Ms Girimont, we applaud you for standing up to this bully. A public denunciation from you would have gone a lot farther with your would-be constituents however and demonstrated some leadership against this civic menace.

Had you come to us in the first place this could have been dealt with immediately.

Halburn, we condemn your biased, underhanded, unscrupulous, unethical behavior. These examples show just how low you will go to to make yourself appear to be a legitimate journalist.
Once again you have proven yourself to be the hack we all know you are.

My Bias is Showing...Again

Here in Putnam County, some of us cheer for Marshall. Others root for WVU. Closer to home, we love Buffalo, Hurricane, Poca, or Winfield.
Halburn cheers for whoever Raymond Peak, Scott Edwards, the Hurricane City Council, Mike Hall, Karen Facemyer, Steve and Troy Andes, Raymond “Joe” Haynes and Patti Schoen are against. He opposes everything that they support.
Saturday, it didn't matter. He wore his favorite colors (yellow) and partied the day away at the 3rd Putnam County Tailgate Party.
As loyal readers know, Halburn has it in for WV Delegate Patti Schoen.

Illustration by PutnamLies.com staff artist (NOT Mark Halburn)

She wouldn't allow him to BULLY her into introducing a ridiculous statewide anti-noise law. She saw his demands as the rantings of a MADMAN that they were.
So he now goes out of his way to report any negative items about her and put her in a bad light.

Due to his hatred of Schoen, he deliberately MISREPRESENTED as fact that Debra Girimont, her opponent for the West Virginia House of Delegates 14th District Republican nomination, was a SPONSOR of the Putnam County Tailgate Party. The enemy of his enemy is his friend.


A source has disclosed to PutnamLies.com that Girimont WAS NOT a sponsor but merely a PARTICIPANT. She had a tailgate set up just like the other participants. She did NOT sponsor anything except herself!!!

We call on Ms. Girimont to contact PutnumLive about this misstatement and force him to run a correction! Silence is acceptance!

DAY 8 UPDATE: After eight long days, a slight correction has been made. Ms. Girimont is no longer listed as a sponsor but as a "participating vendor" with no mention made of the correction.
Why is Ms. Girimont being singled out as a participant if she was not a sponsor?
All other participants are lumped into "a host of others."
PutnamLies.com is proud to have forced a unethical publisher into somewhat correcting the record.

Once again, here is another example where, being the SLIMY bucket of shit that he is, he has a personal interest in the story and he fails to disclose it because he has an axe to grind!!
Journalistic ETHICS require that he disclose any conflicts of interest in a story.
Luckily for him, he has no ethics so that doesn't apply to him.
When will he get it through his thick skull that a "news" story is not the place for his personal BIAS?