Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Humiliates Himself in Maryland Court

Bill Schmalfeldt: ‘Brain-Damaged Troll’ (Image via YouTube.com)

From today’s Viral Read report on the latest Brett Kimberlin news:

Kimberlin personally handed a copy of the 48-page complaint to blogger John Hoge this morning at a Maryland court hearing where Kimberlin’s associate Bill Schmalfeldt failed in his appeal of a court order forbidding Schmalfeldt to continue his online harassment of Hoge. Kimberlin filed his federal suit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

For the past couple of weeks, Bill Schmalfeldt — who has described himself as a “Brain Damaged Troll” — has been boasting on Twitter that he was going to devastate Hoge in today’s hearing. For some strange reason, reality refused to conform to Schmalfeldt’s delusions:

Bill Schmalfeldt called me as his witness. I was on the stand for about 25 minutes and answered fewer than 10 questions. Most of the time was spent either by my lawyer objecting (and the judge sustaining her objection) on matters of relevance or Judge Stansfield correcting Schmalfeldt’s misunderstandings of legal concepts. . . .
The judge also explained to Schmalfeldt that there is no exception to Maryland’s harassment statute for “journalism.”
None of Schmalfeldt’s exhibits were received into evidence.
When Schmalfeldt rested his case, the judge dismissed the petition on his own motion. My lawyer did not have to present my side of the case. . . .

Read the whole thing at Hogewash.com and be sure to hit his tip jar to repay John for providing us such delightful entertainment.

 

The #Shutuppery Files: ‘Twitter Gulag’ #StopRush Crew Joined Team Kimberlin

Remember when North Carolina Democrats were trying to intimidate @LadyLiberty1885 and @sistertoldjah? The headlines:

Who’s a ‘Bully,’ @GregFlynn? Democrat
Operative Targets North Carolina Mom

— The Other McCain

#ShutUppery and the Drums of #WAR
— Lady Liberty

Why The Doxing of LadyLiberty1885 and
Other Conservative Female Bloggers Matters

— The Jawa Report

Noted douche nozzle @GregFlynn wants
Conservative blogger to “shut up”

— Daley Gator

Prominent #NCGA Dem activist using
front group to stalk, dox conservatives

— Sister Toldjah

#ShutUppery: North Carolina Dems wage online
witch hunt against conservative women

— Twitchy

What you may not have realized is that this is part of a continuing pattern of harassment, smears and intimidation waged against conservatives on Twitter for years. Remember in April 2012, liberals got Chris Loesch’s account suspended — sent to the “Twitter gulag” — as a result of their orchestrated harassment. This activity was supported and encouraged by the same people who, under the hashtag #StopRush, were harassing Rush Limbaugh’s advertisers online.

The connection involved an activist named Melissa K. Brewer who, at the time, was using the Twitter handle @subculturestuff, an account that has since been deleted, but which you can see via RTs of existing accounts, (e.g., April 14, 2012, April 20, 2012,  April 22, 2012) and you might notice the overlap between the #StopRush and #Occupy hashtags:

The featured link was to this:

End Hate Radio: Rush Limbaugh
National Sponsor lists, twitter actions and more.

How to take action in the #stoprush campaign, no matter where you are.
Tweet & Send FB Messages to National
Rush Limbaugh Sponsors Directly.

Melissa Brewer’s @subculturestuff account was an outspoken advocate of this unhinged leftist #StopRush attempt to silence Rush Limbaugh, and then she got exposed as targeting Limbaugh’s Twitter defenders, specifically including Sister Toldjah.

Brewer told #StopRush supporters to pre-emptively block a list of conservative Twitter accounts she accused of being “Nazis” and even suggested reporting them to the FBI! 

Accounts on Brewer’s targeted list included Stephanie Janiczek (@SMjaniczek), @fatdaddybulldog, @sevenlayercake, @Serr8d, @Polliwogette and Darleen Click (@darleenclick). So the same people who were trying to shut down Rush Limbaugh, who has a nationwide radio audience of millions, were also trying to shut down these ordinary citizens with a few thousand Twitter followers.

What followed Brewer’s exposure was familiar to anyone who followed Neal Rauhauser’s 2010 TwitterGate debacle. Brewer deleted her hit list, denied responsibility, and then claimed that she was a victim of online harassment, rather than the perpetrator thereof.

Cowardly lying bullies who hate free speech are predictable that way.

Delete, delete, delete — @subculturestuff is gone, but Brewer’s stuff got screencapped, so that people noticed when Brewer’s @catsrimportant account became involved in harassing Brett Kimberlin’s enemies a few weeks later in June 2012. What was not understood was why Melissa Brewer would support a notorious criminal like Brett Kimberlin, or why she was the source Bill Schmalfeldt contacted (using his since-deleted @LiberalGrouch account) for information on Aaron Walker:

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?

Notice the frequent communications between them:

Look again: What did Melissa Brewer say on June 4, 2012?

@liberalgrouch @DavidHogberg Did you see the Anon leak
about people being PAID to blog about Kimberlin?
A story of deflection & #GOP #FAIL

Melissa, I’ll bet you $20 that “the Anon leak” you referenced was, in fact, a conspiracy theory smear written by Brett Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser, and if you or anyone else can provide me that document, I believe I can prove Neal’s authorship. Rauhauser’s habitual dishonesty, his penchant for using false conspiracy theories to attack his targets, is well-known. (See, for example, “Andrew Breitbart’s ISR Cell?“) For those of us being sued by Brett Kimberlin for $1 million — when the activities of Team Kimberlin (including Schmalfeldt and Rauhauser) are part of the allegations in that lawsuit — this kind of stuff becomes highly relevant.

Go here, do a CTRL+F search for @catsrimportant and you will find Schmalfeldt tweeted to Brewer 293 times between June 3-July 2, 2012.

Highly relevant, as I say.

So, to recap: The same Melissa Brewer who was part of the hateful #StopRush boycott effort to silence Rush Limbaugh, the same Melissa Brewer who was part of the hateful effort to silence @SisterToldjah and other conservatives on Twitter, this was the Melissa Brewer who claimed to have an “Anon leak about people being PAID to blog about Kimberlin,” and this same Melissa Brewer was communicating multiple times daily with Bill Schmalfeldt, who has harassed Aaron Worthing, Ali Akbar, Lee Stranahan, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, John Hoge and others. Lee Stranahan, Feb. 16:

Cease & Desist: Melissa Brewer aka
@CatsRImportant Is Working With Bill Schmalfeldt

That was at the time Stranahan was pursuing harassment charges against Schmalfeldt. It has been alleged by Kimberlin Unmasked that Melissa Brewer is “Xenophon,” who has published multiple attacks on Team Kimberlin targets. And guess what? Kimberlin Unmasked also is a defendant in the Kimberlin v. Walker et al. lawsuit. Now, after all this, Melissa Brewer has posted a long article with this headline:

My Story: PTSD, Survival, and Feminism

Let me quote a few key passages briefly (with comments):

I entered into the world of “political blogging” because I feel my experience benefits women. . . .
I am writing this to reach my online friends, although I’m sure my “political enemies” will also have a field day with it. You see, these political “foes” think that it’s discrediting to find out every miserable thing in my past, every horror I inflicted on myself, and use it against me to humiliate me online.

(It does not “humiliate” anyone to call your enemies Nazis and to urge people to report your enemies to the FBI?)

No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, I had underlying mental illness, and “looking normal” or “acting okay” never erased that desire to destroy myself, cut myself, or take my own life. . . .
Living with a secret mental illness isn’t easy. . . .

(Yeah, tell me about it. Some of us have been unfortunately forced — by you — to live with your mental illness for months. But thanks for admitting what we already knew: You’re psycho.)

When I look back at it, it all feels like some surreal nightmare to me. My psychiatrist once told me that people with PTSD walk around with a feeling of “unreality” . . .

(Thanks for reminding us again that you’re crazy.)

By the time I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I had attempted suicide three times. . . .

(But heroically survived, so you could courageously inflict your misery on the rest of the world because — social justice!)

In 2008, a small group of residents from N Street walked to the Metropolitan Church on 16th Street as a small group, and placed our vote for President Obama. That was the most political thing I’d done in my whole life. It was actually one of the happiest moments I’d had in a very long time. . . .

(Inflicting your misery on the rest of the world. Q.E.D.)

Because I suffer from PTSD, my writing career is part-time, and I’m fine with that. Sometimes I take a part-time job or temp work, when the going gets tough. But again, I’m fortunate, and I tend to get by on the residual royalties that I make from online publishing.
I’m not brilliant, rich, or famous. I’m good at social media, and I am sometimes a really good writer.

(And you say so yourself.)

The only reason I have ever written on politics was to have a voice. . . .
Nobody has ever paid me to blog or Tweet anything political. I only write under my own name, because I want to own my words, because I find it empowering-especially now that the ex that I had a restraining order against is now in jail, and probably going away for a significant amount of time.

If it is true, however, that you have never written except under your own name, why were you suspected of being “Xenophon”? Why were you assisting deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt in his unconscionable harassment of Lee Stranahan and his family?

Why, Melissa Brewer, did you join Team Kimberlin? Why would anyone defend a criminal monster like Brett Kimberlin?

So now, denying that you ever wrote about politics for money, and denying that you ever wrote under a pseudonym, you tell this long tale of what a pitiful victim you are, soliciting sympathy for yourself, so that anybody who now suspects you of lying can be accused of lacking sympathy for victims of violence and abuse.

Because . . . feminism.

Well, I’m getting sued by Brett Kimberlin for $1 million, so perhaps you’ll excuse me if I’m a little short on sympathy just now.

You tried to silence Rush Limbaugh.

You accused Sister Toldjah and her friends of being Nazis.

You told your friends to report conservatives to the FBI.

You sought to destroy innocent people on behalf of Brett Kimberlin.

And yet after doing all this evil, you are the victim? Let me check . . .

Nope. Sorry. My give-a-damn’s busted.

What’s a synonym for “prostitute,” Melissa?

Andrew Klepper, 19 of Bethesda, has been charged in conjunction with an alleged act of prostitution.
On May 15, a Montgomery County police officer saw an advertisement in the Erotic section of Craigslist.com. He contacted the woman in the advertisement, Melissa Brewer of Reston, Va., and arranged to meet, according to charging documents.
The documents further state that Brewer quoted a price of $200 per hour for a “full service” appointment. The term “full service” is understood to mean sexual intercourse, according to the documents.

Yeah, $200 for “full service,” and you were advertising yourself on Craigslist under the name “Lisa,” but you’ve never been paid to write about politics and never written under a pseudonym?

We should trust you, because you’re mentally ill. And a prostitute.

Liars hate the truth.

And the truth they hate most is the truth about themselves.

 

Busy Day on the Kook Beat

When you specialize in writing about criminals, perverts, weirdos and kooks, sometimes it’s hard to keep them all sorted out. My Twitter timeline and e-mail inbox fill up with tips, from all over. Here’s the World’s Most Famous Sex Offender Kaitlyn Hunt talking about the nude photos and masturbation video she sent her underage victim:

Looking back on it, that contact is one mistake Hunt readily regrets, as she told WPTV. “Yeah I do regret it because I trusted her as not only my friend but my girlfriend, too. I felt I got set up in multiple ways and I got hurt by her,” Hunt said. She says she still cares about the younger teen, just not the same way. “I don’t love her the way I did before,” she said.

“I got set up in multiple ways” = “I got caught, because I’m stupid.”

“I don’t love her the way I did before” = “Now that I’m in jail, I can’t finger her in the school restroom toilet stall.”

Kaitlyn’s mother Kelley Hunt Smith . . . words fail:

Bill Schmalfeldt? Yeah, words fail there, too:

Meanwhile, I spent more than a half-hour on the phone today with an Indiana source, getting helpful additional background on the pro se plaintiff in Kimberlin v. Walker, et al.

Also, via others sources, I obtained some important documents I hope to post later. If these Team Kimberlin weirdos imagine that, by any lack of diligent preparation, I’m going to lose a defamation lawsuit to a convicted bomber and perjurer, they’re crazy.

But of course, they’re crazy anyway. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Speaking of self-evidently crazy people, Amanda Marcotte is angry at Twitter because . . . well, she’s just angry a lot, isn’t she?

 

Dueling Meltdowns: Bill Schmalfeldt and #FreeKate’s Disgusting Supporters

Today, two different Bill Schmalfeldt accounts got banned from Twitter — he still doesn’t understand why being a “Team Kimberlin” member is a losing proposition — and while that was happening, there was news on the Kaitlyn Hunt story. First, Matt Philbin of the Culture and Media Institute examined ABC’s 20/20 segment:

[Matt] Gutman’s report was a masterpiece of advocacy masquerading as journalism. He breathlessly recounted Hunt’s original arrest, saying Indian River police “set a trap” for Kaitlyn. Then, “In an interrogation room, Kaitlyn is questioned, asked about intimate details most people wouldn’t want to discuss with their best friend, never mind a police officer.” Of course, people who enjoy having sex with kids in public lavatories may not be quite so fastidious about intimate details, but never mind.
Interviewing Kaitlyn, Gutman hammered her with such tough questions as, “Did you love her?”; “What does it feel like to become this icon of the gay community?”; and “I wonder if you feel that you made a mistake here? Did you do anything wrong?” (She doesn’t think so.) And he teased out such bombshell revelations as, “I felt like my senior year was, like, ruined.”

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, shockingly, Hunt’s deranged supporters are busy lashing out at famed crime-fighter John Walsh:

@Ali Abkar and I will talk about this and more tonight at 9 p.m. ET:

 

Exhibit A: ‘Team Kimberlin’

“Robert Stacy McCain never acknowledges errors or mistakes. For example, in May of 2012 he claimed to have left his home in Maryland for fear of Brett Kimberlin. But this week, Kimberlin’s process server found him at the same address where he lived last May.”
— “Xenophon,” BreitbartUnmasked.com, Sept. 20, 2013

As I explained yesterday, I didn’t blog much over the weekend because I was researching my defense against one of the accusations in the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al., lawsuit:

4. Defendants falsely wrote that other targets of theirs were part of “Team Kimberlin” and published that Plaintiff controlled, paid, and directed this vast network of “unsavory” operatives.

Proving the existence of Team Kimberlin will not be difficult, but fresh evidence is always welcome. A week ago, after I replied to a Twitter message from Ali Akbar, the “Breitbart Unmasked” Twitter account (clearly associated with Team Kimberlin) decided to taunt me, in an apparent show of support for fellow Team Kimberlin member Bill Schmalfeldt. Sunday, I noticed that “Breitbart Unmasked” hadn’t sent any further Twitter messages to Schmalfeldt. So I poked, and this morning “Breitbart Unmasked” responded:

So, Bill Schmalfeldt helpfully reveals, he has “regular phone conversations” with his fellow member of Team Kimberlin, which certainly would help to explain a situation I raised again Sunday:

Friday, I pointed out that Bill Schmalfeldt has claimed direct knowledge of Brett Kimberlin’s legal actions against myself and my co-defendants, joining his fellow Team Kimberlin members in premature celebration of their own imagined future vindication.
Bill Schmalfeldt claimed to know that Kimberlin served me with notice of his lawsuit in Maryland, but I don’t live in Maryland, and have not lived there since mid-2012. Therefore the question arises, who told Bill that I had been served at a Maryland address?

Ergo, the identity of “Breitbart Unmasked” (and likewise their fellow Team Kimberlin member “Xenophon”) is quite relevant to my defense in the case of Kimberlin v. Walker, et al., and Bill Schmalfeldt’s statement makes him a direct witness to these matters.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Catch them telling the truth. Catch them telling a lie. Either way, so long as they refuse to exercise their right to remain silent, everything they say can and will be used against them in a court of law.

And their dishonesty is quite notorious.

 

Bill Schmalfeldt’s Latest Meltdown Continues, and Other Birthday Gifts

Today was my birthday — I’m 54 years old — and other than reminding you of The Five Most Important Words in the English Language (“Hit the freaking tip jar“), I’d like to apologize for the paucity of posting this weekend. I’ve been engaged in deep research for my defense in the Kimberlin v. Walker et al. lawsuit, specifically this:

4. Defendants falsely wrote that other targets of theirs were part of “Team Kimberlin” and published that Plaintiff controlled, paid, and directed this vast network of “unsavory” operatives.

There are many accusations in Kimberlin v. Walker et al. and, while the burden of proof is on the convicted perjurer Brett Kimberlin, who is litigating pro se, a defense against his accusations — the liar has dared accused me of dishonesty — justifies an extraordinary defense. Counsel may choose to pursue a minimal response, based on narrow legal doctrines, and I would be bound by such legal advice. However, my childhood Boy Scout training requires me to “Be Prepared,”  i.e., to demonstrate conclusively that everything I have written about Brett Kimberlin is quite literally true. (Ken White at Popehat is soliciting volunteers to assist in defending “The Kimberlin Five.”)

So while many readers are weary of hearing about the deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt, his role as a member of Team Kimberlin is quite relevant and, hey, it’s my birthday, OK? Indulge me.

Bill Schmalfeldt’s periodic meltdowns have become so frequent that they are blurring into one continuous fit of incoherent ravings. Friday, I pointed out that Bill Schmalfeldt has claimed direct knowledge of Brett Kimberlin’s legal actions against myself and my co-defendants, joining his fellow Team Kimberlin members in premature celebration of their own imagined future vindication.

Bill Schmalfeldt claimed to know that Kimberlin served me with notice of his lawsuit in Maryland, but I don’t live in Maryland, and have not lived there since mid-2012. Therefore the question arises, who told Bill that I had been served at a Maryland address?

Other questions arise from there, you see.

Bill Schmalfeldt can’t answer any of those questions, or at least he cannot answer them honestly without revealing the source of the false information, because that source must be a member of Team Kimberlin, as is Bill himself. Quod erat demonstrandum.

The Bill Schmalfeldt School of Journalism Ethics teaches many strange lessons, like harassing the wives of journalists who won’t stop telling the truth about convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin:


Notice that he was tweeting on Nov. 23 as “Liberal Grouch” and on Nov. 30 as “Lord of Satire”? He changes his Twitter handle so frequently because he keeps getting himself suspended from Twitter for his habitual cyberstalking and harassment.

Anyway, we know why Bill Schmalfeldt was “investigating” my wife, just as we know why Bill Schmalfeldt harassed Lee Stranahan.

As for the legality of such behavior, I am not a lawyer, and neither is Bill Schmalfeldt, but he occasionally dabbles in pro se litigation, and is representing himself in the Hoge v. Schmalfeldt case. There will be a hearing Oct. 16 on Schmalfeldt’s motion to modify Hoge’s peace order against him, and Schmalfeldt has been rather imaginative in the premature celebration of what he assumes will be his victory.


Alas, Bill’s pro se Perry Mason fantasies will likely be disappointed:

Since there has been a final judgment in the case, the legal doctrine of res judicata prevents either side from relitigating the court’s previous findings. Those findings must be taken as a given, so, no, neither side gets to tell the judge that he got the facts wrong. The court may permit either side to introduce new evidence that bears on whether or not the order should be changed because of new circumstances, but the initial findings of fact stand. The court may listen to oral argument about how the law bears on any new circumstances.

Hoge schools Schmalfeldt on the established facts:

  1. I did place Schmalfeldt on notice to stop communicating directly with me on 15 February, 2013.
  2. Schmalfeldt was aware of that notice as evidenced by his sending a tweet on 15 February referencing it.
  3. Schmalfeldt continued to contact me directly after being put on notice. Schmalfeldt’s description of how Twitter handled @mentions and @replies was found to be inconsistent with Twitter’s Rules and Best Practices.
  4. Schmalfeldt’s messages to me via Twitter were found to meet the elements harassment as defined by Md Criminal Law § 3-803.
  5. Schmalfeldt’s messages to me via Twitter were found to lack a legitimate political purpose and not to be for the purpose of providing information to others; thus, his messages were not covered by the First Amendment exceptions in the law.
  6. Because all the elements of the crime of harassment were proven, the court found that Schmalfeldt had harassed me during the period in question.
  7. Based on evidence presented concerning Schmalfeldt’s behavior up until the night before the trial, the court found that he was likely to continue to harass me.

Like a petulant child deprived of some hoped-for treat, Bill Schmalfeldt responds to disappointment with tantrums, lashing out wildly in every direction, enraged that his sense of self-pity is not shared by others. Here we see a typical victimhood gesture:

In June, when a Maryland Circuit Court judge granted Hoge’s peace order, Bill Schmalfeldt falsely claimed: “I’ve only used [Twitter] to respond to lies he tells about me on his blog. . . . Flame wars have just been deemed illegal.” Flame wars continue every day on the Internet, of course. Bill’s problem is that he has bought into the bizarre theory of “Troll Rights,” i.e., believing that other people are obligated to provide him access to their own Internet space.

Schmalfeldt can and does write on his own space. The problem is that almost nobody reads his blog, or follows him on Twitter.

He’s banned on Daily Kos. He’s banned at the Examiner. He gets angry about being ignored, and erupts in frothing rage. So then people pay Bill the only kind of attention he deserves — pointing out that he’s a brain-damaged troll — at which point he claims victimhood. Then the cycle begins again, and Bill makes new threats:

So, Happy Birthday to me. And here’s a nice parting thought:

“Neal Rauhauser, Brett Kimberlin, and
their pals are deeply dishonest.”

Glad I’m not the only one who knows that.




 

 

‘Very, Very Bad, Doug!’ More Journalism Ethics Lessons From Bill Schmalfeldt

A few weeks ago, Bill Schmalfeldt and his digital associates (“Xenophon,” and other sock puppets)  were doing their Happy Dance, claiming that Brett Kimberlin had served me with notice of a lawsuit in Maryland. Except that I don’t live in Maryland and haven’t since mid-2012, and I have not been served. Schmalfeldt went silent about that claim after it was suggested that he and his sockpuppet pals provide proof that I have been served, which of course they can’t, because I haven’t.

Here’s a question: Who told Bill Schmalfeldt that I had been served?

Who told Bill Schmalfeldt that I still live in Maryland? Why would Bill Schmalfeldt publish hearsay that he had no means of verifying?

Ethics! Bill Schmalfeldt has Journalism Ethics, you see, and nobody else has any ethics at all, especially not me. All I did was attend a court hearing in Maryland so that I could witness first-hand the courtroom proceedings between Brett Kimberlin and his estranged wife.

Because of that, Brett Kimberlin has accused me of “malicious prosecution, conspiracy to abuse process, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and stalking.” (Also, perhaps, “Mopery With Intent to Lurk.”)

Brett Kimberlin has accused me of these things, I say, although I haven’t been legally served, neither in Maryland (where I don’t live) nor anywhere else, and I would very much like Ethical Journalist Bill Schmalfeldt to explain who told him that I had been served.

Of course, my whereabouts are no more Bill Schmalfeldt’s business than the legal proceedings in Kimberlin v. Walker, et al., but from Bill Schmalfeldt’s occasional eruptions, you might get the impression that he believes that he will be vindicated by the success of Kimberlin’s pro se litigation against myself, Aaron Walker, John Hoge, Ali Akbar and the pseudonymous blogger “Kimberlin Unmasked.”

This lawsuit will fail, however, and perhaps Bill Schmalfeldt should contemplate the consequences of that failure.

Nevertheless, rather than provide Bill Schmalfeldt further clues to the truth (lest he should repent his sins, and escape the fires of Hell), let me remind you of the First Lesson in the Bill Schmalfeldt School of Journalism Ethics, i.e., threatening people named “Doug”:

Doug was someone who, Schmalfeldt evidently believed, knew the identity of someone named “Jerry Fletcher,” who was associated with the conservative blog Knot My Wisconsin. Doug didn’t tell Bill what he wanted to know, and instead forwarded Bill’s threat to Jerry, and that made Bill Schmalfeldt very, very angry:

Very, Very Bad, Doug! VERY Bad
That was a private message for YOU, Doug. But you gave it to your little palsy-walsies at the Knothead group. You violated my trust, Dougie, and posted information that was meant for your eyes. I guess that gives ME permission to post personal information about YOU now … doesn’t it?
I think so.
Yes. I think so.
Bill

So, who is “Doug”? Where is all this “personal information” about Doug that Bill Schmalfeldt published in retaliation for having “violated my trust”? On what planet, in what alternative universe, is it “ethical” for a journalist (or anyone else) to threaten people this way? What kind of story is so important that “ethics” excuses such behavior?

Of course, it doesn’t, and Bill Schmalfeldt can’t explain or justify any of this, and if you try to hold him accountable for his behavior it’s “STALKING AND HARASSMENT,” and Bill’s a victim.

By the way, thanks to “Jerry Fletcher” for the tip.

It’s all a vast conspiracy, see?

One meeel-lion dollars!

 





 

The Bill Schmalfeldt School of ‘Ethics’

After his Monday meltdown, we might have hoped Bill Schmalfeldt would spend a day or two recuperating, but such hopes were inevitably disappointed. Instead, the deranged cyberstalker spent Tuesday and Wednesday ranting about how John Hoge’s “STALKING AND HARASSMENT” and “FALSE CHARGES” were driving him to an early grave. Because, you see, Bill Schmalfeldt is a pitiful helpless victim.

In between ranting about Hoge, Schmalfeldt also repeatedly sent Twitter messages to Ken White of Popehat (I counted 43 such messages in about 24 hours), who responded by reminding Schmalfeldt of his well-documented history of vicious harassment:

This refers to a threatening Facebook message that Bill Schmalfeldt sent to a Wisconsin woman in 2011:

“Now . . . you’re going to wind up being the Monica Lewinsky for Jeremy’s Bill Clinton unless you start telling the truth and start telling it quick. I’m done fucking around, and I am not going away. You’ve already had “the media’s” interest in this case explained to you. Now, do you wanna play dumb and lose your kids? Or do you wanna play smart and keep what you got? I am not making any threats. I am just trying to help you avoid a shit storm for some giggling fuck who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you. Do you really want to be dragged through the mud for THIS giggling shitwit. I’ll wait to hear from you. But I send what I have … EVERYTHING … to the Wisconsin Media tomorrow.”

Is that “a trick of investigative reporting,” or is that harassment and attempted extortion? Do investigative journalists routinely threaten potential sources with harm to their children? John Hoge answers that question with an emphatic “no.” But criticizing the helpless victim Bill Schmalfeldt, is not journalism:

What I linked there was Bill Schmalfeldt’s rather notorious December 2012 article attacking Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Ken White, which you can read for yourself. OK, so why was Schmalfeldt attacking Frey and White? Because Frey was the defendant in a nuisance lawsuit which Neal Rauhauser had encouraged Nadia Naffe to file, and White was one of Frey’s defense attorney:

Bolstering my conclusion that this was a politically motivated attack were the admissions by Neal Rauhauser (the hatchet-man associate of Brett Kimberlin) that he had arranged counsel for Naffe. Rauhauser proudly trumpeted his silly but telling hope that the lawsuit would accomplish his (and Kimberlin’s) long-held goal of costing me my job.

Why would Bill Schmalfeldt be publishing personal contact information of the defendant in a lawsuit and one of his lawyers?

What had Frey or White done to deserve such treatment from Schmalfeldt? One might suspect that Schmalfeldt was acting in concert with Neal Rauhauser and Brett Kimberlin to help them accomplish their “long-held goal” of getting Frey fired from his day job.

One might suspect this — it would be a common-sense surmise of the available evidence — but it’s impossible to say for certain what Bill Schmalfeldt’s motive was, because Bill Schmalfeldt is both crazy and dishonest. Attributing rational motives to a madman is always risky, and nobody can accept the word of a proven liar. But, according to the Bill Schmalfeldt School of Journalism Ethics, a mere suspicion justifies all manner of “investigative reporting” tricks, such as the threats Schmalfeldt made against a man named Doug:

All Doug had done was to “like” a Facebook page that contained negative comments about Bill Schmalfeldt. Therefore, Schmalfeldt threatened Doug that he would “dig deeper into your background and find out what there is to find about you,” unless Doug would agree to “tell me everything you know about [a certain person’s] relationship with the [Knot My Wisconsin blog]. Is [the person] Jerry Fletcher? WHO is Jerry Fletcher? I want it all Doug.”

You see the typical deadline — “5 pm today, October 26, Eastern Time” — attached to the angry demand that Doug must supply the requested information, or else Bill Schmalfeldt would publish (presumably derogatory) information about Doug.

Go ask any professional journalist in America if they have ever used this type of tactic, especially in pursuit of so trivial a goal as discovering the identity of someone associated with a blog. Who is Jerry Fletcher? Why on earth would anybody care?

Perhaps Bill Schmalfeldt can explain all this. But I doubt anyone will take his explanation seriously, because Bill Schmalfeldt is crazy.