Anybody seen this BS floating around?

[razors edge]

Got this from a coworker this morning, he sent it out to about thirty people and I would love to reply with a rebuttal but I can't research it right now. Any help would be appreciated.

THIS WILL OPEN YOUR EYES!
> By Paul Harvey
> Conveniently Forgotten Facts.
>
> Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided that a fellow black
> panther named Alex Rackley needed to die. Rackley was suspected of
> disloyalty. Rackley was first tied to a chair.
> Once safely immobilized, his friends tortured him for hours by,
> among other things, pouring boiling water on him.
>
> When they got tired of torturing Rackley, Black Panther
member
> Warren Kimbo took Rackley outside and put a bullet in his head.
> Rackley's body was later found floating in a river about 25 miles
> north of New Haven , Connecticut.
>
> Perhaps at this point you're curious as to what happened to
these
> Black Panthers? In 1977, that's only eight years later, only one of
> the killers was still in jail.
>
> The shooter, Warren Kimbro, managed to get a scholarship
> to Harvard and became good friends with none other than Al Gore.
> He later became an assistant dean at an Eastern Connecticut State
> College
> Isn't that something?
>
> As a '60s radical you can pump a bullet into someone's head and a
> few years later, in the same state, you can become an assistant
> college dean! Only in America
!
>
> Erica Huggins was the woman who served the Panthers by boiling
the
> water for Mr. Rackley's torture. Some years later Ms. Huggins was
> elected to a California School Board.
> How in the world do you think these killers got off so easily?
>
> Maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who
> came to the defense of the Panthers. These two people actually
went
> so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in
defense
> of the accused Black Panthers during their trial.
>
> One of these people was none other than Bill Lan Lee.
> Mr. Lee, or Mr. Lan Lee, as the case may be, isn't a college dean.
> He isn't a member of a California School Board. He is now head
of
> the United States Justice Department's Civil Rights Division,
> appointed by none other than Bill Clinton
>
> O.K., so who was the other Panther defender?
> Is this other notable Panther defender now a school board member?
> Is this other Panther apologist now an assistant college dean?
> No,neither!
>
> The other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical law student at
> YaleUniversity at the time. She is now known as The "smartest woman
> in the world."
>
> She is none other than the Democratic senator from the State of
> New York---- our former First Lady, the incredible Hillary Rodham
> Clinton.
>
> And now,
> "You know the rest of the story".
>
> Pass this on!
> This deserves the widest possible press.

[Heidi]

1. That has been debunked:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/panthers.asp

[a kennedy]

6. Thanks snopes.......

and Heidi :yourock:

[razors edge]

10. Thanks Heidi

will set the record straight to the whole bunch of them.:yourock:

[patricia92243]

2. If true the answer is: As George Bush says "That was in the past and has nothing to do with today.

[evlbstrd]

3. False.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/panthers.asp

[William769]

4. it's been debunked on snopes.

[woodsprite]

5. We could write something similar about Repubs, but the fact is

we wouldn't have to make up half the shit that we'd put in there.

[Cass]

7. Snopes.com has a very similar piece about Hillary - its false

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/panthers.asp

[Ilsa]

8. False per Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/panthers.asp
I hate it when this bullshit gets passed around. Make sure you reply it out to everyone and remind them that they have an obligation not to pass around lies like this. Otherwise, we'll have to start saying crap like "Brownback's southern family ate babies during the depression."

[davhill]

13. They did?

We have to get the word out right away. If you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough there will always be people who accept it as the truth.

[meegbear]

9. It's a bastardized chain email from 2000 ...

As is the case with most chain letters, the above was undated and gives no source for its allegations. The first article I could find was from the the cult leader Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, June 12, 1998. The source they quote is David Brock. He says that as a law student Hilary Rodham Clinton "organized shifts for her classmates" to "monitor civil rights abuses.". This is a far cry from the urban legend letter above stating she "actually went so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers during their trial."

Most of the web pages and almost all of the postings at Newsgroups I found are just reprints in one form or another of the above letter.

Interestingly, somewhere along the way, a quote by syndicated radio commentator Paul Harvey was attached to the bottom of the message (most likely as part of somebody's signature). Later versions were attributed Harvey as a result of the quote, but he did not write it or read the story on his show. Break this Chain.

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/hilary.html

[BlueManDude]

11. Reminds me of the racist "Andy Rooney" email that was floating 'round.

[atreides1]

12. Looks like Paul Harvey forgot "The Rest of The Story"

Synopsis Hillary Clinton and Bill Lann Lee (Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights) were campus radicals while attending Yale University and 'shut down Yale University with demonstrations.'

See the story here.

Is it true? Not entirely, it is mostly exaggeration.
Why? The email makes a number of claims, some of which are based on actual events.

The email closely resembles part of an article by John McCaslin's 'Inside the Beltway' column that appeared in the June 12, 1998 issue of the Washington Times. The email addes a heaping portion of accusations over and above McCaslin's column.

The Urban Legend Zeitgeist will try to sort out this tangled skein of innuendo and accusation.

Alex Rackley was tortured and murdered by fellow Black Panthers in 1969 in New Haven, Connecticut. Rackley was suspected of being a police informant largely on the accusations of George Sams. Sams was a police informant but Rackley was not. The murder of Rackley may have been an attempt by Sams to divert suspicion away from himself. Rackley was interrogated and tortured for a week before being murdered.

Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale was visiting New Haven at the time of the murder. Seale and thirteen other Black Panthers were arrested.

The trial of the Black Panthers became famous as the trial of the 'New Haven Nine.' Coming on the heels of the trial of the 'Chicago Seven,' in which Seale was also a defendant, for fomenting riots at the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago, some saw the trial as a concerted attempt to suppress political dissent in the US.

George Sams, Warren Kimbro and Lonnie McLucas were all convicted on various charges for the murder of Alex Rackley.

Bobby Seale and Erika Huggins were eventually acquitted by a hung jury. The jury voted 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggin's acquittal.

What of Hillary Rodham and Bill Lann Lee? According to David Brock's unflattering biography, Hillary Rodham organized shifts of law students to monitor the trial of Seale and Huggins.

Bill Lann Lee was an undergraduate student at Yale and played no prominent role in the campus protests.

Did Bill Lann Lee and Hillary Rodham 'shut down' Yale with protests? No, sympathy for the Black Panthers was widespread on campus, both among the faculty and students. Yale President Kingman Brewster stated that he thought that the Black Panthers were unable to get a fair trial in the US. Yale University made concessions to the protestors and the demonstrations were largely peaceful, unlike the protests at Kent State University a few days later.

When? June 2000
Comments Perhaps at this late date it is difficult to imagine the deep social and political divisions in the US in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The Black Panther Party was, and still is, one of the most controversial phenomena of that time. But the linkage between Hillary Rodham Clinton to the New Haven Nine is at best tenuous. In Bill Lann Lee's case it is nonexistant.

It is hard to fault Hillary Rodham's efforts to monitor the trial. After all, the right to a fair trial is one of the fundamentals of the rule of law.

No contemporary account of the Yale protests names Hillary Rodham as one of the protest ringleaders. Nor is there any evidence that Hillary Rodham espoused the Black Panther Party's political agenda then or since. To tar Hillary Rodham Clinton with the political passions of almost thirty years ago is unfair.

What of Warren Kimbro, Erika Huggins and Bobby Seale? Warren Kimbro served his sentence and was released according to legal procedure. He can hardly be faulted for getting an education and pursuing a career. The email argues that any future success or actions must be held liable to some kind of judgement of past political acts. This is hard to square with a democratic society.

Who wrote this screed? It obviously borrows heavily from McCaslin's column. Commentator Neal Boortz (see Nealz Nuze) claims authorship but the Urban Legend Zeitgeist has been unable to verify this.

See also "Students walk out as campus erupts in protest of Seale case and Vietnam War" from the Yale Daily News Online
"COINTELPRO"
"Black Panthers" from the Urban Legends Reference Pages

[Blue_In_AK]

14. My husband was sent that crap a while ago.

It's been debunked.