New Questions Emerge About Anti-Palin Blogger Jesse Griffin (a/k/a ‘Gryphen’)

posted at 7:30 pm on August 11, 2009 by The Other McCain
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When a blogger using the alias “Gryphen” published a rumor Aug. 1 about an allegedly impending divorce between Todd and Sarah Palin, links from Dennis Zaki at Alaska Report and Jeanne Devon at Huffington Post quickly boosted it to the top item at the Memeorandum political news aggregator.

The rumor was quickly and emphatically denied by the Palins. It was subsequently discovered that “Gryphen” (a) was Jesse Griffin, a kindergarten teaching assistant at Trailside Elementary School in Anchorage, and (b) had a history of blogging about his preferences for amateur pornography and masturbation. On Aug. 4, Griffin resigned his Anchorage public school job, but on his “Immoral Minority” blog wrote that his position at Trailside was only part-time, and not his main source of income.

Now, Dan Riehl has posted a new 2,400-word report documenting an apparent connection — via a private school in Anchorage listed as Jesse Griffin’s “employer of record” — between this Alaska anti-Palin blogger and a health-care company that just got $4.3 million in “stimulus” cash:

A business enterprise, Clinica Sierra Vista, Inc. (CSV), linked to [Catherine New and Eligio White] recently collected over $4 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars as part of an overall effort in support of community-based health care centers being touted by Barack and Michelle Obama. . . .
Former Alaska resident Catherine New is married to the head of CSV, Eligio G. White. New is also linked to the Puffin Heights Montessori School identified as Griffin’s employer. . . .

Because some liberal troll-commenters at Riehl World View have pretended not to see the dots that Dan has connected, I’ve offered a simple summary:

1. Jesse Griffin’s “employer of record” is Puffin Heights Montessori school.
2. Employees of that school told Dan that they have never seen Griffin at the school.
3. Former Alaska resident Catherine New was once listed as “primary contact” for the Puffin Heights school.
4. The Puffin Heights school was apparently bankrupted by IRS tax judgments and reorganized circa 2002, with “Yolanda Baber” listed as head of the LLC.
5. Online investigator Joseph Culligan has been unable to verify the existence of a “Yolanda Baber” in Anchorage.
6. Meanwhile, Catherine New and her husband, Eligio White, have prospered in the health-care industry and are “progressive” activists whose business recently received $4.3 million of stimulus money.

What does this mean? I don’t know and Dan doesn’t know. Neither Griffin nor Catherine New has responded to Dan’s attempts to get their explanations. The Anchorage Daily News doesn’t seem interested in Griffin, even though Maureen Dowd mentioned Griffin’s situation in her New York Times column Sunday.

But, hey, Dan and me are just a couple of blog dudes. What do we know about that “journalism” stuff? So we’re doing what Trig-Truther “Gryphen” and his PDS buddies like to do: Just asking questions . . .

UPDATE: Melissa Clouthier calls Dan’s report “investigative journalism at its finest,” and Doug Ross is just asking questions . . .

UPDATE II: Via Conservatives for Palin, Dan Riehl discusses the ”Gryphen” investigation on Breitbart TV:

A most unfortunate outcome for Jesse Griffin, but — as Dan makes clear — a totally self-inflicted wound for this pathetic PDS-impaired moonbat.

PREVIOUSLY IN THE GREEN ROOM: TIMELINE of the INVESTIGATION

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