Category: Bill Schmalfeldt

And Now, Helpless Victim Bill Schmalfeldt Heroically Suffers Glorious Martyrdom

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Bill Schmalfeldt: Not cropped to ‘look positively demonic’

“Let’s talk about R.S. McCain, as well — Robert Stacy McCain. Here he writes column after column after column about me, in which he refers to me in the most defamatory ways, about being deranged . . . and he takes that picture of me that was taken several days after surgery . . . crops it to make me look positively demonic, and then when I ask him to denounce this death threat, I get a ‘don’t contact me’ e-mail back. Where’s your humanity?”
— Bill Schmalfeldt, Feb. 20 podcast

“Stranahan would f–k you up the a– while picking your pocket, then wipe his d–k on your t-shirt.”
— Bill Schmalfeldt, Feb. 11 on Twitter

Perhaps there is no need to point out the contrast between Schmalfeldt in attack mode and Schmalfeldt in victim mode. Da Tech Guy isn’t buying Schmalfeldt’s fainting-couch act:

Really, you have a guy on twitter with under 150 followers who has his tweets “protected” and people are trying to silence him? Who is actually going to pay money to silence somebody that nobody hears?

The demonstrable insignificance of Bill Schmalfeldt certainly provokes the question, “Why does anybody even notice him?” And the answer is, because of his relentless harassment, he requires attention — preferably, the attention of qualified professionals in the field of forensic psychology, but until such time as the profilers at Quantico take an interest, he’ll just have to settle for whatever attention he gets.

Most people have never had to deal with a deranged cyberstalker, and therefore have no idea what one obsessed kook can accomplish in terms of online harassment. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Schmalfeldt sent me more than 200 unsolicited harassing Twitter messages in the span of 48 hours, including threats to contact my wife.

This was relatively mild in comparison to the months of nearly constant harassment Schmalfeldt has directed at Lee Stranahan. Imagine the effect when Bill Schmalfeldt sends disturbingly obscene messages — dozens of them, scores of them — every day for weeks on end, directed at one person. And because Schmalfeldt cyberstalks his targets, obsessively monitoring their online activities, anyone publicly communicating with his targets is liable to be included as a CC recipient of these kinds of messages, as in this Tweet that Schmalfeldt CC’d to blogger John Hoge (click the image to enlarge):

Stranahan repeatedly asked Schmalfeldt to cease this behavior, but Schmalfeldt persisted, which is why Schmalfeldt was charged with online harassment last week, and this explanation from Aaron Walker really should not be necessary:

Folks, do I have to explain this to you? Well, in case I do, this is not the case of Lee Stranahan v. Bill Schmalfeldt. This is The State of Maryland v. Bill Schmalfeldt. . . .

Anyone familiar with stalking knows how difficult — indeed, perhaps sometimes impossible — it is to dislodge the stalker’s psychological fixation on the object of his obsession: Bill can’t help himself.

Thus the absurdity of Schmalfeldt claiming it is “defamatory” for me to describe him as “deranged.” His derangement is self-evident, and I have merely described it. When someone behaves in ways that are demonstrably crazy — and keep in mind that Schmalfeldt has been relentlessly harassing Lee Stranahan for months now — you don’t need an advanced degree in psychology, and are not at risk of being sued for libel, if you say they are daft, zany, bonkers, wacko, demented, warped, nuttier than squirrel farts and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

 “The sky is blue,” according to the National Weather Service.

Now that Lee Stranahan has brought Bill Schmalfeldt’s dangerous craziness to the attention of authorities in Maryland, suddenly we are asked to believe that Schmalfeldt is a victim. Schmalfeldt accuses Stranahan of “inciting unstable people” (click the image to enlarge):

Lee Stranahan describes Schmalfeldt’s victim motif:

Bill Schmalfeldt has been predicting for days that my pointing out things he’s currently saying about me and family would create an atmosphere of hate. . . . And sure enough; his predictions came true as he’s gotten two mysterious threats that he is blaming on…me.
This is more harassment from Bill Schmalfeldt; a game of accuse the accuser.

“Accuse the accuser” is a tactic Schmalfeldt seems to have learned from his friends Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser, and if you suspect that this is not entirely coincidental, you’ll probably want to see where Schmalfeldt had a chat with his “buddy” Neal.

The charges against Bill Schmalfeldt are a matter of public record, and Schmalfeldt’s continuing harassment of Lee Stranahan is both (a) legitimate news, and (b) additional evidence.

Would you be surprised to learn that Schmalfeldt now claims to have proof that Stranahan was responsible for the death threats?

How amazing this is — not.

Part of the “accuse the accusers” game is the You Can’t Catch Me move that Neal Rauhauser has repeatedly employed: Using proxy trolls and sockpuppets to accomplish his purposes, then pretending innocence and claiming that anyone who suspects him of involvement is paranoid. Because you cannot prove that Neal did it (and keep in mind, Neal has written lengthy online treatises about methods of Internet deception), therefore your suspicion toward him is irrational — and thus evidence that you lack credibility.

Ah, but who laughs last? Little did Neal Rauhauser suspect the mind-blowing announcement that Lee Stranahan got his teeth fixed:

How will Bill Schmalfeldt explain to a neutral third party why topics like my teeth or my wife’s sex life are legally valid areas of obsession for him? I don’t know.

Stranahan’s prediction that the “haters will blow their gaskets” at that news was presented by Schmalfeldt as evidence that Stranahan had advance knowledge of the Twitter death threats against Schmalfeldt, and now the Heroic Victim of Glorious Martyrdom will have something new to explain to his handful of followers.




 

 

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Dishonest Bill Schmalfeldt Got Banned from Daily Kos for Anal Rape ‘Satire’

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

It’s noon, boys and girls, which means that deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt is now podcasting his fathomless rage against Lee Stranahan and other eeeee-vil people who, just coincidentally, happen to be on Brett Kimberlin’s enemies list. Schmalfeldt’s compulsive lying has been previously examined here, but on his podcast yesterday, the sociopathic sadist had the effrontery to accuse me of “dishonestly” cropping his photo to make him look scary.

Oh, cruel irony: That picture of Bill came from the same online file of images in which Schmalfeldt included obscene Photoshopped smears of his various enemies who, as I say, are so coincidentally coterminous with the Kimberlin enemies list. Not going to share those here, but you could ask Ali Akbar what Schmalfeldt “dishonestly” does to photos. Or just look at what Bill did to a Sarah Palin photo:

Schmalfeldt created that Photoshop of Palin bleeding with a stake through her forehead to illustrate a post he wrote under his “Bill Matthews” alias at the Examiner, a deceit he perpetrated after his harassment of fellow Examiner contributors got Schmalfeldt axed as the “Liberal in Baltimore” columnist at the Examiner. He returned as “Bill Matthews” of Wisconsin (despite being a Maryland resident not named Matthews) and kept up that charade until getting banned permanently from the Examiner in August.

Photoshopped images of Republicans spattered in blood is a favorite theme with Schmalfeldt, as shown by an image of Allen West he created to illustrate a May post at Daily Kos.

So much for the Schmalfeldt “image integrity” lecture, eh? My apologies for using “Schmalfeldt” and “integrity” in the same sentence.

Schmalfeldt is forever burning bridges behind him as he careens from disaster to disaster caused by his antisocial personality. He never accepts responsibility for his failures, always externalizing blame onto his scapegoated enemies. The classic example of this was when Schmalfeldt, clumsily attempting to smear “homophobic” conservatives, published a May 18 Daily Kos diary about anal sex.

Go ahead and click that link. Double-dog dare ya.

To say that Schmalfeldt’s graphic discussion of what he called “the Butt Stuff” was obscene and offensive is to understate the matter. Perhaps the most adequate description is “Too Disgusting for Daily Kos,” which is really saying something.

Schmalfeldt’s gross discourse about sodomy drew outraged comments from DKos readers, including “Cinnamon,” who remarked that it seemed “to have been written by a 14 year old, using one hand.” Schmalfeldt then added an unintentionally hilarious disclaimer:

UPDATE: To clarify for Cinnamon’s sake, this is not an indictment of all heterosexual men. I happen to BE a heterosexual man. A heterosexual teacher coerced me into becoming straight when I was just eight years old. I was permanently scarred by the experience of being told of the pleasures of heterosexuality. She never touched me or anything like that, but it was clear that SHE was a heterosexual and I admired her, so I decided then and there, this would be the lifestyle I chose. No, this is an indictment of STUPID heterosexual men who are either self-loathing closeted gays or believe that every gay man in the world wants to f–k him. I thought this was self-apparent throughout this satirical diary, but Cinnamon begs to differ and has slapped this diary with an HR to show her disapproval. Now that we are clear on the actual INTENT of the diarist, who uses satire to make his point (and not everyone “gets” satire, so apparently it has to be explained before it can be read), we begin.

In other words, if graphic discussion of “the Butt Stuff” offends you, it’s because “not everyone ‘gets’ satire.” Two days later, as progressives at DKos continued to pillory Schmalfeldt, he then offered a new Daily Kos contribution:

Please Stop Reading My Diaries. Thanks.
This diary, short and sweet, is really dedicated to the six people who found no humor whatsoever, thank you, in the piece I wrote yesterday about how it’s the “butt stuff” that male homophobes find so scary about “teh gey”.
It is not an apology.
It’s a suggestion.
Stop reading my stuff.

Evidently, this did not placate his critics and that day — May 20 — was Bill Schmalfeldt’s last as a DKos contributor.

This, then, is the character of the remorseless monster who will spend two hours today on his podcast attacking Lee Stranahan and others on the Kimberlin enemies list. 

Schmalfeldt does his twisted “show” five days a week to augment his blog and Twitter harassment of Stranahan. Did I mention that in July, Schmalfeldt created a “Dead Andrew” site to mock the late Andrew Breitbart and disparage Breitbart’s conservative colleagues?

There is nothing so low as to be beneath Schmalfeldt’s despicable hatefulness, including the most disgusting sexual references imaginable to Lee Stranahan’s wife and children.

You stay classy, Bill Schmalfeldt!




 

 

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Kooky Tuesday Continues: Is Social Media Breeding Monsters? Oh, Hell, Yes!

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Having begun the day with a post about deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt, followed up with a post about a maniac professor at Columbia University, and then added a discussion of the (allegedly) felonious kook Barrett Brown, let’s stick with the theme, eh?

In a post at Breitbart.com’s new group-blog thingie, Mandy Nagy asks “Is Social Media Breeding Monsters?” and offers this sampling of evidence in support of the answer, “Oh, hell, yes”:

Facebook Postings Prompted Stabbing, Accused’s Sister Says
Facebook argument escalates into real-world crime when boy grabs gun
Facebook gangbanger turns himself in after threatening Brooklyn’s cyber crime-fighting captain
Briton charged over Facebook threats to kill 200 US children
Police investigating Facebook predator
Man pleads guilty to sexually assaulting underage girls he met on Facebook
Tulsa Man Arrested For Using Facebook To Solicit Sex From 12-Year-Old Girl
Facebook Sting Nets Illinois Perv On Federal Rap
FACEBOOK MURDER CASE: Defendant concocted “sinister plot,” prosecutor says

Kind of an obvious pattern there. Ace of Spades comments:

The downside of the internet’s egalitarianism is that people who have no social peers in their own lives — because, most likely, they are insane or too repulsive in character to attract real-life friends — flock to the internet. They’ve alienated everyone they’ve ever known in real-life; now it’s time to try out their off-putting schtick on the millions of new potential victims at their fingertips.

Exactly so. And it’s also a fact the Internet facilitates deceit, impersonation and fantasy role-playing, all of which involve blurring the line between perception and reality. As a famous Steiner cartoon pointed out, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” and people with an appetite for fraud or make-believe therefore find the Internet irresistible. Not all of these people are criminals or nutjobs, but there are enough of the insane/dangerous types to create a critical mass whenever they find some cause for common action and — no matter how narrow their fringe appetites — it’s possible in an international communication matrix with hundreds of millions of users for a few dozen of them to cluster together and bask in the warm support of their fellow crackpots.

For example, feminists: Tracy Clark-Flory writes about the “labia pride movement,” as if this were something significant.

If there is a critical mass for that kind of delusion, then you see why Bill Schmalfeldt may believe there must be an eager audience for his bizarre fixation, as Lee Stranahan reports:

Bill Schmalfeldt shows no signs whatsoever of stopping public discussion of his sexual obsession with me and my family. He’s been writing about my wife Lauren for months, in insulting and prurient terms that have including fantasizing about having her perform sexuals acts on him and then do menial labor before discussing the death of our daughter Collette
Somehow today, he’s gotten even worse.
On today’s podcast, Bill Schmalfeldt had not one but two new ‘comedy’ pieces, both of which make explicit sexual references to my minor daughter in deranged fake commercials that are about me selling her.
Remember: Bill Schmalfeldt has said repeatedly that he is a serious journalist following a story as any professional would.

Meanwhile, as Stranahan further notes, Bill Schmalfeldt had Neal Rauhauser as a special call-in guest on his two-hour podcast.

Yes, I said, two-hour podcast.

Five days a week, Schmalfeldt rants for two hours about his selected list of enemies which — curious coincidence — exactly matches the Kimberlin-Rauhauser enemies list.

For example (and here we close the circle, as it were), the title of Schmalfeldt’s Feb. 12 podcast was, “It’s Mandy Nagy Day!” Reasonable people may ask, Why would Bill Schmalfeldt single out Mandy Nagy for an entire day of abusive podcasting?

A reasonable answer might be that Mandy Nagy wrote an October 2010 article entitled, “Flashback: Progressives Embrace Convicted Terrorist,” about “Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin. In other words, it is a fair assumption that Schmalfeldt’s entire extravagant oeuvre of harassment — dating back to June, when he began cyberstalking Aaron Walker — was undertaken to defend Kimberlin.

Brett Kimberlin, who reportedly became obsessed with a pre-teen Indiana girl whose grandmother’s murder is still an open case.

Coincidence, probably.

Did I mention that Brett Kimberlin threatened to sue Mandy Nagy? Did I mention that Brett Kimberlin also threatened to sue Patrick “Patterico” Frey, who had also written about Kimberlin’s criminal career? Did I mention that Bill Schmalfeldt also occasionally lashes out at Patterico on his podcast which seemingly serves no other purpose than to attack Brett Kimberlin’s enemies?

Some of these random coincidences crossed my mind today after I received an e-mail from Schmalfeldt with the subject line, “DENOUNCE THIS, OR OWN IT!” The e-mail included a screen-cap of a death threat to Schmalfeldt from a Twitter account. But when I checked the Twitter account — which I  suspected of being bogus — the account had been suspended. So I replied to Schmalfeldt’s e-mail:

STOP CONTACTING ME. FURTHER CONTACT WILL BE CONSIDERED AS EVIDENCE OF HARASSMENT.

By the time I got back on Twitter, Schmalfeldt was already sending me unsolicited messages and trumpeting to various others my reply to his e-mail as proof that I endorse death threats. But there was no way for me to verify that the Twitter account which sent the threat is anything but another of Neal Rauhauser’s notorious collection of sockpuppets.

This morning, I remarked on “Schmalfeldt’s lack of self-awareness, his failure to understand the transparency of his own motives” — he seems to think he is cleverly deceiving people when, in fact, no intelligent person could be deceived by him. In the vastness of the Internet, there may be a sufficient audience of stupid people to justify Schmalfeldt’s daily podcasts, but what are the chances that all these stupid people are also obsessed with Brett Kimberlin’s enemies? Not very good, really.

So many crazy people, so little time.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! The indefatiguable psycho Schmalfeldt has kept at it, so that there is already new cyberstalking craziness, chronicled by Lee Stranahan.

 

‘Beware the Ides of March’: Bill Schmalfeldt Threatens Lee Stranahan?

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

“Healthy minds do not delight in plotting evil against others, and wholesome spirits do not endlessly threaten others with harm they intend to inflict.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Nov. 4, “Monsters on the Internet: Sociopathic Sadism and Bill Schmalfeldt’s Madness”

Last week, Lee Stranahan filed online harassment charges against deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt, and now Schmalfeldt has recorded a bizarre rant that also references Aaron Walker, John Hoge and Patrick “Patterico” Frey:

“It’s all horsesh-t. It’s all absolute horsesh-t. And I and my family have been put through pain and suffering because Lee Stranahan has a grudge. Because somebody, in my opinion, is paying Lee Stranahan to file these charges against me, in the hopes that I will either break or die. I got some f–king news for you, Stranny — Walker, Hoge, Frey — beware the Ides of March.”

What famously happened on the Ides of March? An assassination. And March 15 this year occurs during CPAC, which Stranahan will be attending (he’s nominated for a Blog Bash award).

Why is Schmalfeldt dropping the names of Walker, Hoge and Frey into this threat? And why does Schmalfeldt imagine someone would pay Stranahan to file these charges? Stranahan explains:

Nobody paid me to file charges. It cost me about $140 total to go to Maryland. . . .
It was my idea to file criminal charges against Bill Schmalfeldt but I admit it was not my idea alone. My wife Lauren was adamant about filing harassment charges, especially after Bill Schmalfeldt spent days telling lies and raising ugly, bizarre questions about the death of our daughter as part of his ‘investigation’ of me. There was also the fact that Bill Schmalfeldt called child protective services on us plus the bizarre and constant sexual talk about my wife.
Trust me; after months of Bill Schmalfeldt stalking, harassing, threatening, annoying, and directly contacting us dozens of times, nobody had to talk us into filing criminal charges against him.

There’s also Schmalfeldt’s megalomanic persecution complex, as evidenced by his claim that the harassment charges were filed “in the hopes that I will either break or die.”

No, Bill: You were charged with harassment because — wait for it — you were engaged in harassment.

The obsession, the fixation, the inability to step back from the situation and view it with anything like objectivity — these are symptomatic of a deranged mind, and why Schmalfeldt focused his madness on Lee Stranahan is somewhat mysterious. Schmalfeldt started cyberstalking Aaron Walker in June, and peripatetically hopscotched around to attack various other enemies of Brett Kimberlin over the course of ensuing months. In November, Schmalfeldt’s stalking of me escalated to the point that he threatened to contact my wife and sent me more than 200 harassing Twitter messages in the span of 48 hours. And through it all, Schmalfeldt has insisted that his targets deserve his malicious attention, that they are guilty of some heinous wrongdoing that Schmalfeldt is obligated to “investigate” and “expose.”

It seems nothing can dissuade Schmalfeldt from his persistent delusions of grandeur adequacy. Schmalfeldt’s response to being charged with harassment? Threats of retaliation:

“They thought they had chosen the weakest one in the herd, culled me from the herd, and now they think they’re going to break me. I face two misdemeanor charges in criminal court, and that is supposed to break me. I got news for you boys: I’m bringing down the thunder. I’m bringing up the hellfire. I’m rolling the bomb out to the Enola Gay, and I’m loading it into the bomb bay. I’m taking off for Hiroshima. You won’t know when. You don’t know where. You won’t know how. But you will know why.”

This vague threat to unleash “hellfire” upon his enemies at some future time typifies one of Schmalfeldt’s psychiatric traits I noted in November: Sociopathic sadism. Schmalfeldt enjoys inflicting punishment on those he dehumanizes into hate-objects whom he attacks remorselessly as undeserving of sympathy. He relishes the idea that he inspires fear, and the vague threat of future harm — “You won’t know when. You don’t know where. You won’t know how.” — is intended to vindicate Schmalfeldt’s self-image as someone dangerous to his enemies.

One might also observe Schmalfeldt’s lack of self-awareness, his failure to understand the transparency of his own motives as revealed by the characteristic psychological projection: “They thought they had chosen the weakest one in the herd, culled me from the herd, and now they think they’re going to break me.”

No, Bill, that is what you thought you were doing to Stranahan: You believed Lee was particularly vulnerable to your persistent harassment, and so you kept piling up the attacks, the threats, the smears in expectation of destroying him. And now that Stranahan feels compelled to file criminal charges to end your harasssment, you are projecting your own sadistic motives onto Lee.

You’re a sick freak, Bill Schmalfeldt, and every decent person watching your bizarre behavior regards you with utmost horror.

UPDATE: John Hoge reports the latest development:

Yesterday evening, evidence was presented to a District Court Commissioner in Westminster, Maryland, and the Commissioner found it sufficiently persuasive that he issued summonses to Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, and Bill Schmalfeldt for Harassment and Misuse of Electronic Communication. A summons was also issued to Bill Schmalfeldt for Unauthorized Access to a Computer.
On 19 April, preliminary hearings will be held in Westminster to determine if there is probable cause to try these individuals for the crimes indicated.
I will have no further statements concerning these matters until I am advised to do so by the State’s Attorney or my lawyer, except to say that 1.) continuation of past behavior could result in additional charges and that 2.) other investigations continue.

Exactly what this means — does “unauthorized access to a computer” mean hacking? — I do not yet know.




 

 

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Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Charged With Deranged Cyberstalking

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

The charge is “electronic harassment” (Md. Code Crim. Law §3-805) according to Aaron Walker. The complainant is Lee Stranahan:

For the better part of a year, my family and I have have been under contestant siege from a small group of people who have worked together in a relentless attempt to humiliate, embarrass and inflict emotional stress on us in a clear attempt destroy my professional reputation and to silence my voice. Much of this appears to be related to stories I have written about such as Weinergate, Occupy Wall Street, the media’s handling of the Steubenville rape case and projects I’ve launched like Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day.
These attacks, however, have gone far beyond the realm of impassioned debate and into the realm of illegal harassment that serves no legitimate legal purpose.

Good luck getting to LeeStranahan.com tonight. Bill Schmalfeldt is evidently part of a troll crew organized by Neal Rauhauser to harass various individuals Neal hates, so we can expect the usual hacking/DOS tactics to be deployed against Lee’s site.

Two weeks ago, after yet another manifestation of Schmalfeldt’s obsessive harassment, I wrote:

When will law enforcement start taking this problem seriously? Will we have to wait until one of these cyberstalkers finally kills somebody?

What these people are doing is not “free speech.” In fact, it is the opposite of free speech: Harassment intended to silence (or, at least, distract, annoy and/or smear) bloggers and journalists whose work the cyberstalkers wish to suppress. Unless and until you’ve been targeted by this menacing kook-swarm, it’s very difficult for you to understand what they do and how they do it.

Point One: It’s not really about Lee Stranahan. That is to say, it doesn’t matter whether you like Lee Stranahan or don’t like Lee Stranahan or have never heard of Lee Stranahan. What is involved here is a pattern of harassing behavior systematically employed by certain people who are either (a) crazy, (b) evil, or quite possibly (c) both crazy and evil.

Point Two: It’s not really about politics. That is to say, it doesn’t matter whether you’re liberal or conservative or utterly indifferent to politics, the type of online stalking and harassment involved here cannot be tolerated and is, in fact, illegal.

It’s one thing to throw a few sharp Tweets at someone you dislike or with whom you disagree politically. It is another thing entirely to do to somebody what Bill Schmalfeldt has done to Lee Stranahan. And, in fact, Schmalfeldt has done it to several other people. (Last November, Schmalfeldt sent me more than 200 harassing messages in a single 48-hour span.) It just so happens that Stranahan has become Schmalfeldt’s latest idée fixe, and I guarantee you that Schmalfeldt can’t tell you how this sick obsession began. 

That’s what it’s like with these “Monsters on the Internet”: Once they become obsessed with someone, the etiology of their obsession is lost amid their persistent harassment. Go ahead and ask Schmalfeldt, “Why are you so fixated on Lee Stranahan?”

The answer you’ll get won’t be a coherent, factual narrative about the history of a personal conflict, but rather a lunatic screed about what a terrible person Stranahan is. Then you’ll say, “So what? Stipulate that Lee Stranahan is not a nice person. Why is it so necessary for you to persistently harass him this way?”

And when Schmalfeldt stops his angry rant in reply to that inquiry, you’ll realize you are not dealing with a rational person, but rather someone in the throes of a profound emotional disturbance.

Normal people don’t do what Bill Schmalfeldt does. Continue reading Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Charged With Deranged Cyberstalking →

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.




 

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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 Dishonesty of Bill Schmalfeldt

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His initials are B.S., which is about all anyone would need to know about him, if he weren’t obsessively cyberstalking people, including my wife. But he has persisted — sending me more than 200 Twitter messages in a 48-hour period from Friday through Sunday afternoon — and his continuing career of harassment means that you’re likely to be hearing more about Bill Schmalfeldt in the near future.

Like all trolls, Schmalfeldt is a compulsive bandwidth bandit. It is not enough for him to express his opinions in his own online space. He must impose himself in your space, too.

While writing as the “Liberal in Baltimore” for the Examiner, in April, Schmalfeldt decided to try to hijack the comments field in a column by conservative Examiner colunnist Joe Newby, about the obnoxious anti-Christian remarks made by Dan Savage. Apparently, Schmalfeldt’s comments have since been deleted, but you can tell by the responses from Newby’s supporters that Schmalfeldt was quite personal in his attacks.

That kind of behavior, I’m told, violated the contract terms for Examiner contributors and ultimately led to the end of Schmalfeldt’s tenure as Liberal in Baltimore” at the Examiner, although he shortly thereafter re-emerged at the Examiner as “Bill Matthews” of Wisconsin. Schmalfeldt claims that this alias was not used to deceive Examiner management, asserting that he perpetrated this pseudonymous deception with the full knowledge and permission of Examiner editors.

Either way, Schmalfeldt used his “Bill Matthews” persona dishonestly, as Lee Stranahan explains:

[Schmalfeldt] mocked Andrew Breitbart’s death and deliberately misled Examiner readers about a website and Twitter account that he made specifically to mock Andrew’s loss. This is a horrible person. And further, he defends Brett Kimberlin in the story. This is a sick, twisted person.
Here’s the article Schmalfeldt wrote under an assumed name where he says:

Yesterday, someone started a satirical website called “Big Damnation.” It is a swipe at the right wing blogosphere posing as the late Andrew Breitbart, blogging from hell, where his eternal punishment is to “tell the truth forever and ever” to make up for the lies he told in life. The name pokes fun at the “Big Government” and “Big Journalism” sites Breitbart operated before his “Big Heart Attack” on March 1. The blog had an accompanying Twitter account @DeadAndrew.

Someone? SOMEONE started a website? No, YOU did. YOU, the author of the article. So you’re covering that up.

By the time “Bill Matthews” wrote about “Big Damnation” and “@DeadAndrew,” Twitchy had already identitified its author as the “festering human pustule” that is @liberalgrouch, Schmalfeldt’s Twitter handle. This was discovered by Aaron Walker, but it took another three weeks before Examiner ceased publishing “Bill Matthews.”

During that time, Schmalfeldt/”Matthews” continue pushing predictable liberal smears:

Schmalfeldt/”Matthews” also produced a four-part series attacking GOP nominee Mitt Romney for being a Mormon, and took some more cheap shots at Andrew Breitbart’s legacy:

A few days later, the Examiner and “Matthews” parted ways. Was he fired or did he resign? Schmalfeldt says it was the latter, but if there is one thing we know for sure, it is this: Bill Schmalfeldt is a liar.

UPDATE: I find it difficult to believe that anyone at the Examiner would knowingly have re-hired Schmalfeldt/”Matthews” after what he wrote at Daily Kos on May 11, denouncing the Examiner as a “content generation algorithm disguising itself as a ‘legitimate news source.'”

Grant that the Examiner is wretchedly mismanaged — trust me, I’ve got friends who work there — but why would they re-hire Schmalfeldt? If the Anschutz empire would fire whoever was responsible for that idiotic decision, it would certainly be an improvement to their organization.

Meanwhile, Lee Stranahan points out that Schmalfeldt is “Too Disgusting For Daily Kos,” where he has evidently been persona non grata since May 20.