Epic New Failure: DailyKos Re-Banishes Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt

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Bill Schmalfeldt: Victim of a right-wing smear job?

“Attempting to convince a madman that he is out of his mind is a hopeless task . . .”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 16

Bill Schmalfeldt can never seem to comprehend that the main cause — if not the only cause — of his problems is Bill Schmalfeldt.

Let us agree that a troll must cross a high threshold of obnoxiousness to be deemed Too Disgusting for Daily Kos, yet Schmalfeldt cleared the mark with surprising ease, thanks to his extraordinarily perverse discourse about butt sex. (C’mon, click this link. Double-dog dare ya.)

Banned from DKos in May 2012 as “Bill Schmalfeldt,” he attempted to return to DKos as “Patriot Ombudsman,” reposting something tedious he had published elsewhere about his legal battle with John Hoge. Schmalfeldt prefaced this weird tale (referring to himself in third-person) by describing it as a “story of a reputation ruined beyond repair by right wing nut jobs for no reason other than they wanted to.” Schmalfeldt claimed to be the victim of “a coordinated smear attack by the blowflies that buzz around the dessicated corpse of Andrew Breitbart.” And he included a screen-cap of my July 12 post, “Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Inspires Epic ‘Downfall’ Parody Video.”

What he was attempting to do, as any psychologist would recognize, is blame-shifting: Bill is not responsible for the bad thing that happened; Bill is a helpless victim of what they did to him. (For those not familiar with mental health problems, it may help to read about “Locus of Control,” and also to understand that a disturbance in the sense of agency is typical of schizophrenia.)

Only examination by a trained clinical specialist, of course, could determine if Bill Schmalfeldt is suffering from mental illness, but you don’t need a Ph.D. to conclude that he is nuts, wacko, berserk, demented, zany, bonkers, batshit crazy and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Insofar as Bill Schmalfeldt had his “reputation ruined,” it was he who ruined it, not any “right wing nut jobs.” There were no “coordinated smear attacks,” but merely a series of responses to Schmalfeldt’s own obnoxious actions. If Schmalfeldt imagined that he could insult, disparage and harass others without the targets of these attacks ever reacting to defend themselves, well, he’s crazy.

But I think we’ve already established that, eh?

The origins and history of this episode are easily determined. On June 3, 2012, four days after Brett Kimberlin had Aaron Walker briefly arrested at a hearing in Maryland, Bill Schmalfeldt popped up on Twitter trying to bait Walker into commenting on Kimberlin. This coincidence — the judge on May 29, 2012, ordered Walker not to write about Kimberlin — escaped my notice until Walker pointed it out.

Was this “coordinated”? Had someone acting at Kimberlin’s behest urged Schmalfeldt to interrogate Walker, in an attempt to get Walker to violate the judge’s order, so as to provide Kimberlin with a new pretext for legal action against Walker? I have never claimed that this was the case, although Walker himself is certainly suspicious.

Let others speculate about motives, I merely describe what happened. Over the course of several months, Bill Schmalfeldt’s online harassment escalated, and always directed at antagonists of Kimberlin.

At one point (during Thanksgiving weekend), Schmalfeldt sent me more than 200 hostile Twitter messages in the span of 48 hours. But certainly the worst was Schmalfeldt’s maniacal online attacks against Lee Stranahan, a hateful spree that included shockingly vile writings about Stranahan’s wife and children. Stranahan eventually filed charges of harassment against Schmalfeldt, but the charges were dismissed. However, because John Hoge had given Stranahan a ride from the airport (Stranahan flew from Texas to Baltimore to file charges), Schmalfeldt then turned his obsessive rage against Hoge, which led eventually to Hoge getting a peace order against Schmalfeldt.

Schmalfeldt initiated the conflict, Schmalfeldt escalated the conflict, and at any time Schmalfeldt could have ended the conflict simply by ceasing his relentless attacks against Kimberlin’s enemies. For Schmalfeldt then to use Daily Kos to claim that he was victimized “by right wing nut jobs for no reason other than they wanted to” expresses a belief so far from reality that it can only be called delusional.

And what do we call people with delusional beliefs? Crazy.

Schmalfeldt has now been banned again at Daily Kos, and some of the comments by the DKos regulars are enlightening :

Anyone wondering why this troll was banned the first time should read [Schmalfeldt’s May 2012 post about anal sex].
He posts stupid attempts at humor, often offensive, and gets pissy when he is not heralded as a comedic genius.
When Tree Climbers objected to the language of the POS excerpted above, merely asking for a trigger warning, he mocked them and tried to “out” their charity.
Cried about it in another diary as well.

He was horrible in the comments and deserves no mercy this go round.

i recall he wanted to do a story on a fellow kossack (something about exposing things at her place of work). he harassed and pressured her, and clearly ‘stalked’ her. demeaned her…because she wouldn’t give him the story that would likely elevate him to the levels of woodward/bernstein…or something.
creepy.

Oh shit! Did anyone’s creepy meter go off? Mine sure did. Writing about yourself in third person should automatically come with a warning label.

These are comments from stalwart progressives, not “right wing nut jobs,” not by anyone with any political sympathy for Aaron Walker or Lee Stranahan or any of Schmalfeldt’s other targets. The fact is that Schmalfeldt’s online behavior has been atrocious enough that he has made himself persona non grata even among his own ideological allies. No “coordinated smear” was involved. Bill Schmalfeldt is just crazy.

But I’m pretty sure I mentioned that earlier . . .




 

 


71 comments

  2. He’s like a comic book hero: “The Amazing Neckless Troll Man,” whose super-power is his ability to get banned everywhere.

  4. For the love of all things Holy! … please stop posting “giant-penis-with-glasses” images! Good lord! What a horrifying spectacle to see when I hit your page for some brain food. Sheesh! 🙁

  8. Credit where credit’s due, Stacy. He’s managed to create an area of agreement between you and the Kossack’s.

    How many people have *that* on their resumes?

  13. Dammit man! Next you’ll be disappointing me with the news that that disgusting shit-for-brains running Little Green Footballs is still breathing air that could be sustaining people I like.

  14. The sad thing is that he will never get that he is his own worst enemy. He will always project all of his problems onto someone else. He’s like a elementary school bully. He attacks someone, and when there is a backlash, or negative consequences, he blames his victim.

  16. It seems to me that every post on every blog dealing with political affairs could have the same form and content:

    Link a “headline” from the political publicity campaigns (aka “the news”) and follow with a single statement: Piss up a rope.

  17. Exactly. There is a sort of mental loop that prevents him from thinking in a linear manner.

  18. Neal suffers from the same affliction. The Google results that haunt him truly aren’t HIS fault…..He was STALKED and HARASSED…..

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