Atlas Shrugs Stands By "Psychopath Petitioner" Piece

After we posted our article last week about a supposed cohort of State Senator Marty Golden intimidating constituents with “psychopathic” petitioning, the editor of Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn, John Galt, wrote to us assuring the piece’s validity.

If you don’t remember, a man was seen making rounds in the 49th Assembly District “shouting down, intimidating, and even physically threatening elderly voters.” Atlas Shrugs wrote that the man was known as a Golden affiliate. We wrote that Atlas Shrugs hasn’t always had kind words to say about Golden, and we were still looking for confirmation of who the man worked for.

Galt e-mailed us:

Allow me to comment briefly on your recent article regarding the so-called “Psychopathic Petitioner” (as an emailer to us referred to him as). Please know that we received the report and the photo from more than one source, including an extremely reliable and trustworthy source. Granted, things are not exactly pleasant in the Brooklyn GOP (indeed, we have been covering much of the discord), but I can assure you and your readers that we do not post reports such as these out of these out of spite. We cross-check our facts as best we can before posting anything.

Finally, you state in the piece that “Atlas Shrugs In Brooklyn is pretty anti-Marty Golden.” That is incorrect, although I can understand why you would believe that. We’ve had a number of polls that have shown many of our readers are displeased with Golden’s actions, and some of our writers have taken negative opinions of him. But as we’ve said in previous pieces, we have attempted to reach out to the Senator on many occasions for nearly a year with no genuine results. Nevertheless, that would not affect our objectivity in covering stories such as the one you reposted.

I felt Galt’s reply was worth passing on, because I’m not nearly as familiar with the GOP “meltdown,” or Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn, to comment on the situation authoritatively. I wrote my initial comment, that their site is “pretty anti-Marty Golden,” because I’ve seen negative posts there from some of their contributors and I merely wanted Sheepshead Bites readers to take the story with a grain of salt.

Now you’ve got the story behind the story; go ahead and form your own opinions.