Category: Aaron Worthing

Did Roger Shuler Violate Alabama Law by Impersonating an Attorney as ‘RogerS’?

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Portrait of a Kook: Roger Shuler

On Oct. 24, Patterico called attention to a commenter using the name “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com, a site rather notorious for attacking enemies of Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser. Conspiracy theorists won’t believe it was just a coincidence that, the day before Patterico published that post, authorities in Shelby County, Alabama, arrested blogger Roger Shuler on contempt of court charges.

Speaking of coincidences, however, when Brett Kimberlin fanboy Bill Schmalfeldt reported the arrest of Schuler, he described Shuler as an attorney — and Shuler is definitely not an attorney, so we have to wonder where Schmalfeldt got that mistaken impression.

Oh, Patterico, can you please tell us what “RogerS” was doing?

One of the cast of little transparent sock puppets at Breitbart Unmasked is a fellow who goes by the handle “Roger S.” This “Roger S” was recently on the site talking up the high quality of Kimberlin’s recent RICO lawsuit. My God, Roger S says, the defendants ought to be scared. And Roger S should know! He himself is a lawyer who has handled RICO lawsuits himself! With devastating results!

Hmmmm. So it seems that “RogerS” was presenting himself at a pro-Kimberlin site as an experienced attorney, and pro-Kimberlin blogger Bill Schmalfeldt erroneously “reported” that Alabama blogger Roger Shuler is an attorney. Just a coincidence?

Aaron Walker examines the evidence suggesting that this is not a coincidence, that Schmalfeldt and “RogerS” were in frequent communication, and that Schmalfeldt knew that “RogerS” was Roger Shuler of Alabama and, apparently, believed the bogus claims by “RogerS”/Shuler that he was indeed an experienced attorney.

Readers may examine that evidence and decide for themselves what to believe. Roger Shuler’s got himself a whole heap of trouble down in Alabama nowadays. Having frequently (and unsuccessfully) gone to court as a pro se litigant, Shuler is now on the defense against some very experienced attorneys, including the formidable Bill Baxley.

One might pity Shuler, were it not for the type of atrocious defamation that has been Shuler’s ouevre as a blogger. And if Roger Shuler was indeed “RogerS,” what about this comment?

RogerS on September 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm said:
Well, I think Kimberlin has it correct in his suit, saying that Mr. McCain is not a “legitimate journalist.” Legitimate means that the journalist follows legitimate rules of ethics established by legitimate governing bodies. As you have made abundantly clear, Mr. McCain refuses to follow these legitimate rules of ethics. Instead, he engages in what is obviously malpractice journalism, just as a lawyer who violates the rules of ethics on a wholesale level engages in malpractice lawyering.
I would go even further, and say that Mr. McCain could never be hired by a legitimate media or news company because of his serial violations of the rules of ethics. I believe that he knows this and that is why be engages is his smear blogging tied to tip jar donations.
Mr. McCain is a blogger, a smear blogger, but he is not a journalist as that term is used in the profession. As an attorney, I have no doubt that a federal judge will agree with Kimberlin’s portrayal of Mr. McCain.

Ahem. What horribly false things to say about me, “RogerS.”

Sitting your ass in the Shelby County Jail now, aren’t you, “RogerS”?

Maybe I should just let bygones be bygones, and work myself up some sympathy for Roger Shuler’s constitutional rights.

Trying.

Trying real hard.

Gosh, this is embarrassing.

Despite my profound commitment to the First Amendment, and my concern about “prior restraint” issues in the Shuler case, for some reason I’m unable to work up any sympathy at all for Roger Shuler.

Tell you what: Have yourself a look at the various comments of “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com and tell me what you think.







Now, it just so happens — lo and behold! — that on Oct. 31, “RogerS” showed up in the comments at BreitbartUnmasked.com to deny that he is Roger Shuler. “Xenophon” vouched for this and, of course, we can always trust what an anonymous blogger says when vouching for the veracity of an anonymous commenter, right?

See, there are coincidences and then there are coincidences. As anyone can see from the comments I’ve screencapped, “RogerS” had been commenting quite frequently: Oct. 17, Oct. 18, Oct. 19, Oct. 21, Oct. 23 and then . . . silence, beginning the same day Roger Shuler was arrested in Alabama, continuing for a full week until, after Aaron Walker pointed out that it is a crime in Alabama to impersonate a lawyer, suddenly “RogerS” pops up to say he is definitely not Roger Shuler.

What kind of coincidence do you think that was? And don’t you think that authorities in Alabama, who seem to be very zealous in their enforcement of the law, might be able to get a subpoena to determine whether Roger Shuler was indeed the phony lawyer “RogerS”?

Because it seems to me that if there were probable cause to suspect Roger Shuler of actually committing a crime — as opposed to a mere contempt of court problem regarding civil litigation — they could get a search warrant for Roger Shuler’s computer.

However, that’s just common sense talking. I am not a lawyer, and I sure as hell would never impersonate a lawyer on the Internet.

 


Does Brett Kimberlin Really Need Another Lesson in ‘The Streisand Effect’?

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Aaron Walker tells the story of his most recent encounter with the “Speedway Bomber.” It’s like Wile E. Coyote and Acme rocket skates: You might think he’d learn a lesson, but somehow he never does:

Brett Kimberlin – who spent 17 years in federal prison after being convicted as Indiana’s infamous “Speedway Bomber” – showed up at a Maryland court house and began photographing Walker’s wife.
While Walker was attending a March 1 hearing and his wife was in their car in the parking lot outside, Kimberlin “circled the vehicle, looking into its interior and at my wife,” Walker wrote at his “Allergic to Bull” blog. Walker said Kimberlin “drove around and then parked in the space directly facing my wife … and started taking pictures or filming her.”

“Streisand Effect” — you can look it up. Attempts to suppress the truth tend to have the opposite effect in the New Media age.

What is the truth that Brett Kimberlin so desperately wants to suppress? Just read this: “When Jessica Was 10, 11, 12 . . .”

When the pro-Kimberlin trolls get up in my face on Twitter, I just start Tweeting out that link, and pretty soon, they get out of my face. Why? Because calling attention to someone who tells the truth about Kimberlin sort of defeats the purpose of the Kimberlin fanboy trolls.

And so, truth! truth! truth! What happened to Julia Scyphers?

Blog Bash is Thursday night. The place will be packed to fire-code capacity, and Aaron Walker will be there, along with hundreds of bloggers who all have a motive to tell the truth about Brett Kimberlin.

Let me ask you something: Wouldn’t you like to see video of that event — hundreds of bloggers cheering — when Aaron Walker receives a check to help with his legal expenses? Give what you can — $10, $20, $50 — and make sure the truth about Brett Kimberlin gets told.

UPDATE: Patterico writes:

This news comes on the heels of reports that Kimberlin and his associate Neal Rauhauser have made calls to the establishment hosting the BlogBash party, which Aaron plans to attend, threatening the establishment with protests by Muslims due to Aaron’s involvement with the “Everyone Draw Mohammed” web site, which Aaron and others created to stand up to Islamic extremists who would kill those who dared to depict Mohammed.

C’mon: $10, $20, $50 for the truth.

 

News Flash: Crazy People Are Dangerous

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Bill Schmalfeldt of Elk Ridge, Maryland, a.k.a. “Liberal Grouch”

Aaron Walker discussed the most recent evidence that Bill Schmalfeldt is a deranged sadistic sociopath, as if more evidence were necessary. But I think people are taking too lightly the menace to public safety posed by this swarm of obsessive Internet cyberstalkers whose persistent harassment has targeted Walker, Lee Stranahan, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Mike Stack and others.

If you have the stomach to read the vile things Schmalfeldt was Tweeting about Lee Stranahan’s family, you will notice that Schmalfeldt portrays himself as a Courageous Seeker of Truth. This is a common pose — The Last Honest Man! — favored by a certain type of Internet harasser who engages in a Walter Mitty fantasy of being an “investigative journalist,” thinking of himself as exposing the Hidden Evil he attributes to the Sinister Enemies he fanatically pursues.

The Last Honest Man posture is, of course, deeply ironic because Schmalfeldt is habitually dishonest (he got canned by the Examiner for his compulsive lying, and he’s persona non grata at Daily K0s) and this is where the factor of psychological projection figures so prominently in the bizarre vindication fantasies of such cyberstalkers: By exposing the Hidden Evil of Sinister Enemies, the cyberstalker seeks to prove himself heroically trustworthy: “See? They are the liars — not me!”

Schmalfeldt’s persistence in directing this kind of anti-social harassment at his chosen scapegoats (he’s been stalking Aaron Walker since June) reveals the insane depths of his obsession, because no amount of negative feedback can dissuade him from this behavior. He is incapable of restraining his impulses. A tendency toward sadism is intrinsic to Schmalfeldt’s disordered personality; he uses the Internet as a means to indulge his sick craving to inspire fear in others.

This is particularly relevant today, because it seems the New York Times is concerned that it is “unfair” to focus on mental illness as a contributing factor in crime, even while they find themselves forced to admit that kooks are dangerous:

Most mental health experts agree that the link between mental illness and violence is not imaginary. Studies suggest that people with an untreated severe mental illness are more likely to be violent, especially when drug or alcohol abuse is involved. And many rampage killers have some type of serious mental disorder: James E. Holmes, accused of opening fire in a movie theater in Colorado in July, was seeing a psychiatrist who became alarmed about his behavior; Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people and injured 13 others in Arizona, including former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, was severely mentally ill.

Look, I’m not a psychiatrist, but I know what crazy looks like. Recall my September warning to Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown:

You don’t need a lawyer, Barrett. You need a psychiatrist, or perhaps a priest to exorcise your demons. You are traveling a road to destruction, as harmful to yourself as to any of your chosen enemies. Get help.

About a week later, Barrett Brown melted down and was arrested after recording a bizarre YouTube rant in which he threatened an FBI agent. And it was scarcely surprising to learn, from Brown’s appearance in federal court this week, that he is being treated with the anti-depressant Zoloft and the anti-psychotic drug Risperidone, used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Like I said: Get help.

The problem with crazies like Barrett Brown and Bill Schmalfeldt is that they are able to persuade some people that what they are doing is politically motivated “activism” or “journalism,” and their political allies act as enablers who validate their dangerous delusions.

When will law enforcement start taking this problem seriously? Will we have to wait until one of these cyberstalkers finally kills somebody? A couple of weeks ago I warned about John Tiessen, who went on a bizarre rant after being exposed as a convicted sex offender:

“You people who kicked me to the curb because of my lifestyle, you’re doing the same thing that you’re fighting against. . . . You want these people to get out of prison and . . . you want them to be ridiculed, laughed at, made fun of. . . .
“I still have a hard time with what I did. I know I’m guilty. . . . The coke whore that I picked up promised me a blow job if I gave her coke and then she tried to renege on it, and I said, ‘No, you’re going to do it.’ . . .
“I’m a f–king true freedom fighter. I’m not one of these f–king wannabes. . . . You want to grow some f–king cojones and be a true freedom fighter? Stand up like Jesus did. Stand up to these kings and these so-called f–king religious leaders. . . [Tell them] ‘You’re not speaking for God.’ I don’t care who you are — Obama, Putin, on and on — I don’t care. You’re speaking for the Devil, man.
“You ain’t speaking for the people. You’re speaking for the Rothschilds and the J.P. Morgans and the f–king banks of this world.”

Diagnosis: Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I joke about it, but people like that can be seriously dangerous, and ignoring them won’t make them go away.




 

PREVIOUSLY:

June 3: Bill Schmalfeldt Begins Cyberstalking Aaron Walker

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Bill Schmalfeldt is one of the strange characters in the troll army that has been harassing targets of the Kimberlin-Rauhauser Axis for the past several months. Schmalfeldt recently called attention to himself by cyberstalking me (see, “Pray for Ten Thousand Angels,” Nov. 23), but research shows that he has been at it since June.

His Twitter account has been suspended due to his abusive misbehavior. However, for reasons unknown, in July someone posted to Pastebin 2,800 of Schmalfeldt’s Twitter messages from May 29-July 2. From this cache, it is possible to learn how and when Schmalfeldt got involved:

2670. Sun Jun 03 19:55:53 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209372854213558273,
@catsrimportant can someone point me to something written about this Aaron Walker case that was NOT written by some right wing shithead?

2669. Sun Jun 03 20:30:58 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209381683034722305,
@AaronWorthing Are you really comparing yourself with MLK?

2668. Sun Jun 03 20:42:09 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209384499425976320,
@AaronWorthing I know next to nothing about this case. What did Kimberlin say you allegedly said/tweeted/google that proved threating?

2667. Sun Jun 03 20:42:39 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209384626899255296,
@AaronWorthing Forgive me for asking, but I have some strong views about the First Amendment and I’m researching this story for my blog.

2666. Sun Jun 03 20:42:54 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209384689511841792,
@AaronWorthing I promise. No one will come to get you. 😉

2665. Sun Jun 03 21:10:29 +0000 2012, liberalgrouch, 209391629881192448,
@AaronWorthing Well, certainly a new Twitter chum can recommend to another new Twitter chum a website he might find interesting, say wot?

This is important to understanding Schmalfeldt’s motives, methods and mental disposition. Schmalfeldt’s target was Aaron Walker who, on May 17, had published a 28,000-word account of his conflict with Brett Kimberlin. About the length of a 90-page book, Walker’s account was studded with links to original court documents and e-mails. Schmalfeldt wasn’t dealing with a story where there was any shortage of factual information available.

What was Schmalfeldt seeking? Some way to discredit Walker, to create a narrative in which Kimberlin could be portrayed as the victim.

This is the “accuse the accusers” motif that has added layers of unnecessary confusion to this story: By a sort of narrative ju-jitsu — minimizing the deliberate harmfulness of Kimberlin’s actions, while depicting his targets as unethical, selfish or motivated by purposes of political revenge — the “accuse the accusers” strategy creates a false equivalence between victim and victimizer. This method of online obfuscation is effective because few people (including law enforcement officials and judges) have the patience necessary to trace the conflict to its origins, nor do they seem willing to contextualize any particular aspect of the conflict by studying it as part of an overall pattern of behavior.

Schmalfeldt began his involvement by declaring to Melissa Brewer (@catsrimportant) — an ally of Kimberlin and Rauhauser — that he wanted coverage of the Walker case not written by “some right-wing shithead.” He then started to hector Walker, questioning whether the convicted bomber Kimberlin had done anything threatening. Schmalfeldt offered as his motive his “strong views about the First Amendment.”

Keep in mind that, on May 20, Schmalfeldt evidently got himself banned from Daily Kos, where he’d been a diarist less than six months. Schmalfeldt’s stint as a blogger at the Examiner was terminated May 2, after he was accused of abusive conduct toward fellow Examiner contributor Joe Newby. (Shmalfeldt resurfaced June 22 as Examiner columnist “Bill Matthews,” only to be terminated again Aug. 6 after his deception was discovered.) His “strong views about the First Amendment,” we may suppose, involve Schmalfeldt’s antisocial belief that he should be able to say anything to anyone in other people’s privately-owned online space, without regard for the proprietors’ rules or even basic human decency. (See “Bill Schmalfeldt: Too Disgusting For Daily Kos,” Nov. 25, by Lee Stranahan.)

“Troll Rights” may be an interesting legal concept, but it’s a lousy career strategy. Schmalfeldt entered early June with more than one burnt bridge behind him, and his apparent plan for redemption was to make himself the white knight who would slay the dreaded Aaron Walker dragon that was threatening that noble progressive, Brett Kimberlin.

“The Narcissist as Self-Imagined Hero” — Schmalfeldt isn’t the first such character we’ve encountered. Incapable of accepting responsibility for his own errors and misfortunes, the narcissist instead externalizes blame for his failures, demonizing and scapegoating others. Unwilling or unable to emulate successful people, the narcissist envies them. Viewing success as a zero-sum game, he convinces himself that the game is rigged against him, and that the success of others results from their unfairly taking advantage of the “system,” thus wrongly cheating him out of the rewards and admiration he believes he deserves.

All people naturally want to think well of themselves, and even people with healthy minds are susceptible to the psychological defense mechanisms involved in narcissism. The difference between normal self-regard and pathological narcissism, however, is the profound ego-damage that motivates the narcissist, and his inability to recognize or accept the reality of his situation. In its most extreme manifestation, narcissism becomes paranoid psychosis, as the demonized scapegoats used to explain failure are inflated into an all-powerful “Them.”

Most narcissists never slip over the edge into outright psychosis, but instead exhibit borderline antisocial traits, among them grandiosity — an irrationally exaggerated sense of self-importance — and a tendency to dehumanize others. You can see this, for example, in the grotesque Photoshop image of Sarah Palin that Schmalfeldt used to illustrate his July 26 Examiner post (written under his “Bill Matthews” alias):

Palin bleeding with a spike through her forehead? Coupled with an unfunny “joke” about nipple-piercing? And Bill Schmalfeldt created this image to illustrate a blog post about Chick-fil-A?

Here’s a simple mental health test: You might be dangerously crazy if you need an explanation of what’s wrong with that.

So, Bill Schmalfeldt, courageous defender of the First Amendment, about midway through the 33 days between his getting banned from Daily Kos and his re-emergence at the Examiner as “Bill Matthews,” chooses as a suitable target for destruction Aaron Walker.

Why Aaron Walker?

Well, on May 29 — the Tuesday before the Sunday on which Schmalfeldt began “researching” his anti-Walker attack — Walker had been briefly arrested following a court hearing in Montgomery County, Maryland. That incident was widely reported (see “IBD At Kimberlin Hearing: Walker Handcuffed, 1st Amendment Muzzled,” by David Hogberg, Investors Business Daily) and, for the second time in less than a week, the Kimberlin saga controlled the top seven threads at Memeorandum.

Bill Schmalfeldt, courageous defender of the First Amendment, couldn’t stand it: How dare “some right-wing shithead” claim that he had rights that were threatened by noble progressive Brett Kimberlin? Therefore the white-knight hero would ride forth to save the day by “exposing” Aaron Walker as the dastardly villain. The result of Schmalfeldt’s scheme was a June 6 blog post with this vicious headline:

Buzzing Blowflies Swarming
the Rotten Breitbart Carcass

Ah, yes! That’s it! Schmalfeldt hated Breitbart when he was alive, he heinously mocked Breitbart after he was dead, and he knew that the way to invoke the Left’s sympathy for Brett Kimberlin was to portray Kimberlin as the victim of a Breitbart-inspired “hoax,” just like the Breitbart “hoax” that had brought down Anthony Weiner.

What? You didn’t know that Weiner was the victim of a “hoax”?

Maybe you aren’t one of the “Weiner Truthers” who coalesced around a certain Web site that is now run by Bill Schmalfeldt.

Narcissists crave attention, and some people think that the best way to deal with Bill Schmalfeldt is to ignore him. Schmalfeldt started cyberstalking Aaron Walker in June, and I tried to ignore him. It wasn’t until September that his name was first mentioned on this blog.

We keep re-learning the same sad lesson:

“It is very easy to decide ‘this isn’t any of my trouble’ and permit vicious behavior. . . . Who wants to get involved? Easier, and surely safer, just to duck one’s head and hide, and hope the danger visits someone else.”
— Ace of Spades, May 22

Evil is persistent. Duck your head, shrug your shoulders — “Gosh, too bad what happened to Aaron Walker” — and never mind who will be visited next by this particular specimen of evil. Never mind what innocent person the monsters will choose to victimize, because nobody can be bothered to pay attention to what’s happening.

Monsters on the Internet: Sociopathic
Sadism and Bill Schmalfeldt’s Madness

“Sociopathic sadism”? Am I an expert, to make such a judgment? No, but after more than six months of this craziness, I’m pretty damned familiar with it. Never mind what clinical label the diagnosticians might apply. You don’t need a Ph.D. to recognize evil.

Don’t let evil win. Go hit Aaron Walker’s tip jar.

And please, don’t stop praying now.

 

The Continuing Newsworthiness of the Weird Kimberlin-Rauhauser Story

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Brett Kimberlin could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison

“Keep in mind that Rauhauser, by inciting Nadia Naffe’s lawsuit against Patterico, has obligated Patterico to avoid writing about this subject on advice of counsel, and Aaron Walker‘s attorneys have advised him likewise. So two of the bloggers most knowledgeable about what I call the Kimberlin-Rauhauser Axis are not in a position to tell readers what’s happening on that front. William Hoge has been keeping tabs on the court proceedings, but Rauhauser’s methodical cyberstalking required my special attention.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Oct. 21

“It’s as if the whole matter is just being treated as a blogger war, as opposed to something that could have gotten multiple people killed.”
— Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Nov. 8

“I believe this to be reckless endangerment if not attempted murder. The intent there was to cause harm.”
— Aaron Walker, Nov. 27

When Neal Rauhauser’s blog went dark (and Neal’s pet Twitter troll, “Occupy Rebellion” went silent) Friday, it didn’t make big headlines — even most blogs ignored it — despite the fact that it involves one of the central figures in one of the most bizarre stories of the year.

Among the minor frustrations of covering this story has been the occasional accusation that I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, chasing an inconsequential controversy that boils down to “just a bunch of crazy people arguing on the Internet.” Yet the story remains every bit as newsworthy today, in early December, as it was on May 25, when it accounted for the top seven threads on Memeorandum.

As a matter of fact, with a key court date approaching Tuesday — when Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Richard B. Potter will hear several motions in the Virginia case of Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. — the story is now more newsworthy than ever. Furthermore, the possibly related incidents of “SWATtings” (which have targeted conservative bloggers including Patrick “Patterico” Frey) recently gained notice in the mainstream press:

So here we have a story with a celebrity angle and nationwide significance, related to the Anthony Weiner scandal, and also involving Brett Kimberlin, the infamous “Speedway Bomber” who gained notoriety for claiming to have sold drugs to a youthful Dan Quayle. In addition, this story involves the late Andrew Breitbart because, as I explained Nov. 24, Aaron Walker first came to Kimberlin’s attention after Walker was CC’d on an e-mail that liberal blogger Seth Allen (who had been sued by Kimberlin) sent to Breitbart last year. And, if all of that is not enough to make the story sufficiently interesting:

The strange relationships between all these incidents and individuals could scarcely be sorted out and explained in a single blog post, but as confusing as it may be, the point is — as Patterico told L.A. Weekly‘s Simone Wilson — this isn’t just “a blogger war.”

The Internet is being used as a weapon of what Patterico has called “political terrorism.” Law enforcement seems indifferent to this threat to First Amendment freedoms, and a similiar indifference has been shown by many journalists and bloggers.

“It is very easy to decide ‘this isn’t any of my trouble’ and permit vicious behavior. . . . Who wants to get involved? Easier, and surely safer, just to duck one’s head and hide, and hope the danger visits someone else.”
— Ace of Spades, May 22

Over the past six months, the danger of which Ace spoke has been visited on many innocent law-abiding American citizens, some of whom had nothing to do with the Kimberlin story. Neal Rauhauser has boasted of his skill at playing “conflict cupid” with his enemies, and has evidently incited several vile creatures to join a sort of troll army, attacking not only those who have spoken out against Rauhauser’s client Kimberlin, but also anyone who has rallied to the defense of Kimberlin’s targets. Larry Sinclair, Bill Schmalfeldt and Brooks Bayne are among those who have assisted in sowing confusion, conflict, suspicion and fear around these targets. This is part of what I’ve called the “accuse the accusers” strategy and, as I said in September:

I am not deceived. I am not distracted. And I sure as hell ain’t afraid.

There was an election campaign to cover and so, except for the occasional mention of new developments, “The Kimberlin Files” were laid aside until that ended. Now I’m back on the story.

Aaron Walker’s lawsuit against Kimberlin, Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert aims to hold people accountable for their dangerous and harmful activities. The hearing Tuesday in Manassas, Virginia, will resolve several preliminary motions in that case:

Kimberlin’s conduct in the case, acting as his own attorney, has been decidedly weird. At one point in August (see “Exhibit J” here), Kimberlin sought to delay the case to Dec. 15 and e-mailed Walker’s attorney Dan Backer:

“I am cooperating with the FBI and other law enforcement officials regarding several issues involving your client and I believe that the resolution of those matters will have a bearing on this case.”

The idea that a notorious criminal like Kimberlin would be “cooperating with the FBI” is strange enough, but what “issues involving” Aaron Walker could be of interest the FBI?

My guess is that Kimberlin was talking about Rauhauser’s effort to depict Walker (along with Patterico, HB Gary, Jen Emick and others) as part of a conspiracy that exists only in Rauhauser’s twisted imagination. Rauhauser has been pushing this craziness for months. In February, it was the “Kookpocalypse“; a few months later, Rauhauser adapted the conspiracy theory to his false claim that Brandon Darby was to blame for the SWATtings. By September, Rauhauser (aka “Carlito2000”) was pushing this insanity at Barrett Brown.

If Kimberlin thought he could save himself the trouble of defending against a lawsuit by getting the feds to prosecute Walker based on Rauhauser’s false “Kookpocalypse” theory, wouldn’t that implicate Kimberlin in an attempt to obstruct justice? What other purpose could Rauhauser’s falsehoods serve, except to distract and confuse authorities investigating the SWATtings? And, as Patterico points out, why would Kimberlin plead the Fifth Amendment when asked what he knows about SWATting?

There are people who think they know the answers to those questions, just as there are people who think they know why Rauhauser’s blog suddenly went “dark” on Friday. Rather than supply the common-sense inferences — readers may connect the dots however they please — my main goal is to encourage journalists and bloggers to bring attention to this case as Tuesday’s hearing approaches.

More than six months after I canceled a planned trip to the G-8 Summit in order to cover this story, Walker’s lawsuit against Kimberlin promises to bring some sort of clarity (and, perhaps eventually, closure) to this savage tale. Reader contributions to The Shoe Leather Fund have permitted me to stay on this story despite every effort by Kimberlin and his henchmen to intimidate me into quitting, and I know readers don’t want me to quit now. So once again I remind you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

 

 

 

 

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

 

 


Auto-Marginalization: @BrooksBayne Decides to Jew-Bait (!) Aaron Walker

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Did I ever mention that I was friends with the late Sam Francis? That I have shaken hands with Pat Buchanan and once interviewed the late Joe Sobran? I’m bringing this up — doing “guilt-by-association” against myself, as it were — to make the point that I’ve hung out with Thought Criminals of the Dreadnaught class, the kind of right-wing extremists your nice Republican mother warned you about.

Having been smeared as a “hater” myself and having seen good people suffer from intra-conservative factional infighting, I am loath to support purges of people on the basis of cheap attacks from the Left or flimsy accusations of ideological impurity.

Ask Pamela Geller who stood up for her when Charles Johnson accused her of abetting “Euro-fascism.”

So now we confront the problem of Brooks Bayne.

Exactly who he is, or thinks he is, or has convinced other people that he is, Brooks Bayne has recently decided to auto-marginalize himself. It’s a hell of thing to say about somebody that I’d rather link a Firedoglake article about them than to link anything they ever wrote.

The Entire Internet Hates Brooks Bayne’s Guts

That was in March, when Bayne decided to go off on a weird tangent about Sandra Fluke’s boyfriend being Jewish and the scion of a family who subscribed to “the typical Jewish variant of socialism.” Marc Tracy offers an examination of Bayne’s rant at Tablet Magazine.

Just to demonstrate that one can speak of “the typical Jewish variant of socialism” without being a Jew-hater, I would direct you to David Horowitz’s memoir Radical Son, in which he ponders how and why his Jewish parents became members of the Communist Party U.S.A., and thus idolators in the totalitarian personality cult of a mass murderer named Josef Stalin. Horowitz recognized the cultural roots of this and discussed it in the context of tikkun olam. As I wrote in February 2011:

Tikkun olam is a rabbinical concept that might properly be translated as “for the public good,” but which in the modern era has been politicized by many on the Left, so that it is indistinguishable in their interpretation from “social justice.” Most famously, Michael Lerner — a 1960s anti-war radical who once led an SDS splinter group called the Seattle Liberation Front — named his magazine Tikkun.

“Social justice” is, as Hayek said, a mirage. Whatever you call it, and whatever compels you to pursue it, chasing the mirage of social justice will eventually bring about disillusionment, if you are intelligent and honest with yourself. It would be good if more Jewish conservatives spoke bluntly about this, just as it would be good if more Catholic conservatives spoke bluntly about how various “social justice” teachings of their church empower Welfare State liberalism that is ultimately hostile to faith and morality. For that matter, most Protestant churches could use a stern lecture or two about this perverse and nonsensical misinterpretation of Christian teaching.

As Ludwig von Mises observed nearly a century ago, “Christian Socialism is nonetheless socialism.” But I digress . . .

Brooks Bayne rather reminds me of another enthusiastic political parvenu, Glenn Beck, in that during his famed chalkboard lectures, Beck was often teaching his viewers facts that he himself had just learned. Not that there was anything wrong with that — Beck’s genuine excitment as he traced the historical background of current politics was quite infectious — but there is always a danger that such student-teachers will let themselves be sidetracked into well-known dead-ends that more experienced teachers might have warned them about.

The origins of the Federal Reserve system are indeed a frightful mess, but if you start ranting too excitedly about Jekyll Island and “international bankers,” you’ll sound like a kook — and might actually become one. More than a few well-meaning folks have started down that path and ended up on the paranoid fringe, barking madly about the Bildebergers, the Bavarian Illuminati and the New World Order.

It is in such light that we must evaluate Brooks Bayne and the suspicious whiff of anti-Semitism that surrounds him. I don’t want to be hasty. It takes more than a few sharp jabs at “neocons” to arouse my suspicion in this regard; many of my good friends are paleoconservatives, traditionalists or libertarians who have their own legitimate complaints against neconservatives. Such an éminence gris as Russell Kirk once infamously quipped that it seemed some neocons “mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States.” Unless we’re willing to airbrush Kirk from the conservative pantheon, then, we can’t be haphazardly purging people on the basis of random remarks.

Nevertheless, Brooks Bayne keeps tallying up marks against himself, and has managed to alienate so many conservatives that it’s difficult to find anyone willing to defend him anymore. And this brings me to the incident that inspired this long rumination: After a U.S. District Court judge dismissed Aaron Walker’s federal lawsuit against Brett Kimberlin — I blogged about that decision, and the PDF of the judge’s ruling is here — Brooks Bayne made a comment at his own blog mocking the plaintiff as “Walkerwitz.”

WALKERWITZ?

What the hell is this? Never mind why Bayne, who endlessly celebrates himself as a True Conservative, would take sides with Brett Kimberlin. Why would Bayne make this bizarre anti-Semitic jest about Walker, a conservative Presbyterian from Texas? Maybe because Brooks got this idea (as he has seems to have gotten so many other falsehoods) from the pro-Kimberlin “Breitbart Unmasked” site.

More than two months ago, Aaron Walker explained how “Breitbart Unmasked” began harassing him in March on Twitter with claims that records at Yale Law School showed Walker as being Jewish.

This was preposterous. And where did “Breitbart Unmasked” get that silly idea? From an anti-Semitic site whose idiot author evidently decided anyone with the first name “Aaron” must be Jewish.

So, a falsehood makes its way from a Jew-hating site to a pro-Kimberlin Twitter account and now, it seems, to Brooks Bayne, “True Conservative.”

Anyone care to defend Bayne in this? Anyone? Bueller?

UPDATE: Phillip McGuire on Twitter informs me that Bayne has been throwing this “Walkerwitz” idiocy at Aaron Walker for weeks now, and Google confirms this as true, raising the question: Why were none of Bayne’s fanboys troubled by this? And why do mainstream conservatives think they can safely ignore people like Brooks Bayne?

On the one hand, he may be an irrelevant distraction. On the other hand, he seems to have made himself the center of gravity of a minor galaxy of “True Conservative” posturing, so that when he starts Jew-baiting a Presbyterian, maybe we ought to take time to warn people about this dangerous fool.

UPDATE II: Back in September, Ladd Ehlinger Jr. subjected Bayne to a memorable satirical beatdown.

 


U.S. District Court in Maryland Dismisses Walker v. Kimberlin Federal Lawsuit

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Just got this from an attorney for Aaron Walker, reporting that the federal lawsuit against Brett Kimberlin was dimssed today:

The court decided to duck the entire matter as a “dispute between political enemies”, and we disagree with his assessment as to the Court’s inability to grant the remedies sought. We disagree with the ruling and its failure to address in any way even a single point of substantive law raised by either party, nor did it take into consideration our response to Rule 11 filed yesterday, or our forthcoming Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss by the Organizations, which the court should have considered before granting that particular motion.
We plan to pursue all available options, including an appeal, once our focus is no longer on the 12/04 hearing in Virginia.

Will provide more information as it becomes available. Next week’s hearing in Prince William County, Virginia, involves pre-trial motions in the separate lawsuit under Virginia state law.

UPDATE: John Hoge has posted copies of U.S. Judge Frederick Motz’s decision in the federal case, including the judge’s rejection of Kimberlin’s request for so-called “Rule 11” sanctions against Walker.

UPDATE II: Click here for the judge’s decision in PDF.

Exit, Lying: Smear Site Quits After Being Named Walker v. Kimberlin Defendant

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Readers who have been following The Kimberlin Files these past four months may recall that, as soon as I began reporting on convicted terrorist bomber Brett Kimberlin’s “lawfare” harassment of blogger Aaron Walker, I came under attack by the Twitter sockpuppet troll account (a “synthetic presence,” you might say) known as “Breitbart Unmasked.”

This Twitter account was/is linked to a Web page, created in February, that originally targeted Andrew Breitbart but which, since Andrew’s March 1 death, has become increasingly obsessed with attacking (a) enemies of Brett Kimberlin, (b) enemies of Neal Rauhauser, and (c) people who had something to do with exposing the 2011 Anthony Weiner cybersex scandal.

I took alarm when I saw — and this was May 17 or 18, I forget — that “Breitbart Unmasked” had been trying to “dox” Ace of Spades.

Oh, hell, no you won’t.

A couple days ago, William J. Hoge reported that the person or persons behind “Breitbart Unmasked” had been named as a John Doe co-defendant in Aaron Walker’s federal lawsuit against Brett Kimberlin (not to be confused with the Virginia Walker v. Kimberlin case going forward separately in Prince William County, Virginia). So today, as also reported by Hoge, “Breitbart Unmasked” posted a dishonest and self-serving farewell entitled, “Breitbart Unmasked Closes: The Free Speech Debate.”

That farewell is not linked because (a) Rauhauser has a hacker-ish habit of infesting Web sites with all sorts of nefarious viruses, and (b) we don’t feed the trolls, so if you want to read it, you’ll have to go look for it yourself, but I warn you to use an anonymizer.

Is it possible to deconstruct in detail all the lies “Breitbart Unmasked” tells? Yes, but I’m trying to get ready for a trip to Ohio, and nobody else wants to waste that much time when it’s much simpler to say, as Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman, “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ ”

Buried amid all the dishonest noise, however, the stupid troll’s farewell post includes one telling (and stupidly accidental) admission:

That was what excited us at BU, the challenge of debating Andrew Breitbart on any topic he chose to be interested in. So when he died it threw BU into a conundrum. We went round and round over what to focus on and what the site could be about with him gone. . . .
Those stories have been very interesting because they are about a topic that many like to debate about, which is free speech. And since Andrew was debating with BU about free speech the night he died we decided to run with it; and the rest is history as they say.

Except, unfortunately for you, fool, we know exactly who was “debating” (actually, harassing) Andrew Breitbart on Twitter the night he died — and you can go see for yourself, Neal Rauhauser.

No “Breitbart Unmasked” in Breitbart’s timeline, see?

Rauhauser seems to have deleted the account with which he was harassing Andrew the night of Feb. 29/March 1. Neal created several such Twitter accounts (along with various “Occupy” and “Anonymous”-themed accounts) in 2011, and has since deleted most of the ones that got “outed” as his creations. 

As was his habit, Breitbart had re-Tweeted the most venomous of the Tweets with which Rauhauser was attacking him on the night of Feb. 29, and Breitbart also re-Tweeted a message by one of his conservative friends who called out Rauhauser by name:

Neal Rauhauser has told so many lies he can’t keep track of his lies, and he’s deleted more Web content than most people will ever create. He’s done this over and over, and every time you catch him in a lie — once his malevolent deceits have been exposed — Rauhauser always does two things:

  1. Deletes the exposed lie;
  2. Claims victimhood; and
  3. Begins plotting vengeance against those who exposed him for the vicious dishonest coward he is.

Yeah, good luck with your predictable modus operandi this time, Neal.

Everything has been screencapped and the caches have been saved, and if you think that Aaron Walker’s lawyers are stupid, you’ve got another think coming. And I haven’t even begun to explain the accidental revelations you made in your idiotic bragging posts last weekend, before you “unpublished” those.

Yeah. Saved ’em all. Every single one.

 

 

 

 

THE KIMBERLIN FILES: