Rahelio Soleil / Chris Stewart connection

Many of you who have frequented the Anti-strib over the past years know the name Rahelio Soleil. He is a local blogger who has a site called http://www.americanhotsausage.com/. This site was famous for a “coon of the week” award that Rahelio gave to prominent blacks with whom he disagreed. He also spent a great deal of time helping along race relations by labeling most white people as racists/bigots, blah blah blah. This past summer he went after Michael Broadkorb from MDE with one of the most disgusting displays of racism I have seen. That is, until this week, when john wayne of MN posted a link to a site that Rahelio created to bash Independence party candidate Tammy Lee. As you can see, it is a repugnant smear job. How a person can be this vile and sink this low is beyond me. Then again, this is a guy that also posts on Yahoo group pages and talks about "The Anticoonshow". He's a real gem...

Seeing this racist site, however, prompted me to initially say to hell with him. But after reading some of what David over at Lloydletta uncovered, I suddenly became a bit more energized to expose Rahelio for the fraud he is. It turns out, Rahelio is also known as Chris Stewart. Those not in the Mpls school district may not know this name. But those who are know that this name was on yesterdays ballot for the Mpls school board. As a matter of fact, HE WON. It's a shame the info came out too little too late (or is it?). Using some of the info David at Lloydletta provided in here, you’ll see that Chris Stewart claims to have first arrived here in 1987. But it was the derivation of Rahelio/Chris that really made me think there was something to this. I read on Chris’ campaign site that he came from New Orleans 7th ward. I found this interesting, as I remember hearing the same from Rahelio on two different occasions. First was here, when we were discussing the Star Tribunes bashing of our president for Katrina. But I also remembered reading it over on Rambix. On the Rambix link, Rahelio clearly says he was from the 7th Ward.

Sure, this could still be coincidence. But the details are what make this fact. Chris Stewart’s campaign site states that he works for the state of MN as a business consultant. This prompted me to look into his posts on the anti-strib, and I tracked him back to a domain that came from the State of MN. So, two guys from the 7th Ward, settling in MN in the late 1980’s and both work for the State.

HMMM…

But then I found this interesting piece of info last night and it ties to his campaign site.

Rahelio registered with http://www.dfalink.com/ in August. DFAlink stands for Democracy for America and as it’s site says – “is dedicated to grassroots activism and supporting candidates at all levels of government”. I thought this was strange, as Chris Stewart was also listed on this site for his campaign. The very same campaign that Rahelio covered back in June on this cached version of his americanhotsausage blog (as I understand it, the blog went down right after Rahelio and Chris Stewart were linked). Both are listed on the site, and both are listed as being from Mpls.

Chris's DFA profile has Mpls, MN 55417 listed (where he lives with his wife). His profile also says the following:

Interests: Activism, volunteering, organizing, serving.

Political Skills: Learning a broad range of skills as a candidate.

Favorite Quote: Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

About Me:
Independent Democrat, Candidate for Minneapolis School Board 2006.

Rahelio’s DFA profile has Mpls, MN 55402 (Stewart's wife works in this zip code). Further, the profile says the following:

Interests: DFL defense ministry

Political Skills: Neocon containment

Favorite Quote: If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.-Aristotle

About Me: There are a band of Rahelios, scouring the web for infractions against the DFL.

A band of Rahelio’s, huh? Now the Technorati profile for Rahelio Soleil makes more sense. Various local blogs know that he uses different monikers to post. Many are familiar with “RS2”, and some with RS1. Some digging uncovered the following for RS1:

Rahelio Soleil #1 is a part-time contributer to AHS and our former editor. He
also works full-time as a street minister with Tell The Truth ministries (T3)
and the Faith in Action Network

RS1 is also currently listed as “On hiatus” on the Technorati profile. I initially thought this was just a fluke and Rahelio was playing games by calling himself by different names to keep people guessing (after all, when you’re running for office, you wanna be as stealth as possible if you’re going to mix up in the stuff like the Tammy Lee bashing). However, further digging shows that RS1 is tied to this site, and is one of the ministers listed…

So this leads me to believe that, in fact, Rahelio is a group of people. Pretty shifty. But Chris/Rahelio is not off the hook…not yet because he IS DEFINITELY LINKED to the name. Lucky for us, that danged old internet leaves fingerprints all over. Our boy, sharkbait, did some digging and discovered some info about Stewart. More specifically, about folks associated with him…like his wife for example. But we won’t go there other than to say that her interest in "art" in the 55402 zip code was likely the motivation behind this picture for the Rahelio profile on dfalink.com

The clincher for me was this little tidbit, however. David at Lloydletta uncovered this bit of info earlier in the week. Stewart Dynamics is directly tied to Rahelio on this cached page for Americanhotsausage!!! No longer are we seeing coincidences, we’re seeing hard facts. There are only a few listings for Stewart Dynamics on the web (related to this story), but Stewart and Rahelio linked together here is gold.

David at Lloydletta did call Chris and asked him repeatedly if he was Rahelio, only to receive non-answers. Chris can dodge and tapdance all he wants - but Rahelio IS Chris Stewart. Based on the info I've gathered, I feel that there are, in fact, 3 other Rahelio’s out there, one of which is "on hiatus". I think I know who 2 of the other 3 are and have a funny feeling the one I don't know is tied to the Burnsville address that was served with papers from Tammy Lee's attorney (still trying to track that person down). And that attorney has proof positive that Chris Stewart is in fact involved and shared this information at a press conference on Monday. Information to that effect is listed on edemocracy.com. Here is an excerpt from the string posted there:

“I have now been told that proof was recently presented at a press conference. Press kits containing this proof were handed out to several media representatives including at least one newspaper. The crux of the evidence is testimony given by a computer-forensics expert named Paul Luehr who told the Lee campaign unequivocably that Chris Stewart had put up the website.”

I have contacted Mr. Luehr for comment on this but have not yet heard from him. Given the fact that info was handed out, SOMEONE must have the info and must also be working on this. I hope to touch base with Paul very soon to add some info to this post.

At the end of the day, this all really boils down to Chris being involved in something totally unbecoming of a candidate running for office. And the fact that he is involved with education in Mpls should leave EVERYONE feeling hoodwinked and disgusted. Chris/Rahelio - YOU need to answer for this. You need to come clean and spare all of us the trouble of yet another scandal in the city of Mpls. Admit who you are, what you have done and step down IMMEDIATELY. People like you don't need to be involved with the education of children.

IRRESPONSIBLE MEDIA CRITICISM???

Speaking of being disgusted - Why hasn't ANY local media outlet reported on this? We have a situation where Chris, a candidate running for an office uses his online moniker to put out libelous info on a candidate...a candidate who just happens to be going up against someone that has endorsed HIM. And be clear - I make no association with Ellison here...there is no proof to Ellison being involved. As far as I and many others who have covered this are concerned, this falls solely upon Stewart. But if the media was made aware of this, why have we seen NO report on this? The only people talking about this are in various sites on the blogosphere. This is irresponsible with a capital "I" my friends. Hell, this even made it's way over to the startribune blog - The Big Question, and still NOTHING. It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Star Tribune endorsed Chris Stewart/Rahelio, would it?

Much thanks to David and Eva over at Lloydletta for all their work on this, Dizzy for helping with some other info, and to my bud Sharkbait for doing some legwork that paid off big time.

This is still developing, so I anticipate more info to come.

_______________________________________

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

David at Lloydetta has reported that Chris Stewart has admitted to his involvement in the Tammy Lee smear website. He has yet to take responsibility for this by stepping down from his new post on the School Board, but this is proof positive that he IS Rahelio. Mr. Stewart, you are a scumbag!!!

I must give credit to Steve Brandt at the Star Tribune for reporting on this piece as well.

Chris Stewart, a newly elected Minneapolis school board member, on Wednesday
admitted responsibility for what the congressional campaign of Tammy Lee termed a "racist hate website. "It breaks down to some frat-blog type humor that never was meant to get out to the public and it's completely inconsistent with my
politics," Stewart said of the material he termed political satire.

Stewart said he created the site after reading that Lee had suggested that liberals were too eager to make Keith Ellison the first black and Muslim congressman from the Fifth District.

Finally someone steps up and does what is right over at the Strib. Keep up the good work on this Steve!! STay on this story, don't let it go away!