Category: Patterico

Further Tales of ‘Heroic Hatred’: Down the Rabbit Hole With Neal Rauhauser

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Neal Rauhauser was a speaker at the 2010 Netroots Nation conference

“I’ve been all over Patterico for the last several weeks, as he looks to be a pretty good candidate for the planner/operator behind Weinergate . . .”
— Neal Rauhauser (“Stranded Wind”), Daily Kos, “Weinergate Perps Pay Dearly,”July 27, 2011

Patterico comments on the habits of sociopathic monsters: “I have seen this exact pattern play itself out, again and again.” One of his commenters offers a helpful comparison:

Like Richard Dawkin’s attacks on religion — completely irrational and hateful but he justifies it by claiming that he’s opposing something hateful and irrational.

Is the hatred of religion a coincidental aspect of this problem? Let us recall that Barrett Brown, the former “Anonymous” spokesman who was arrested in September after an online video meltdown, was once the communication director of the atheist group Enlighten the Vote (a/k/a, Godless Americans Political Action Committee). Brown’s atheism and his insuperable arrogance were hand and glove: Assuming that religious people are ignorant bigots, to whom he was infinitely superior, Barrett then proceeded to a series of assumptions that seemed to him equally plausible, ultimately including the erroneous assumption that he could get away with threatening to “destroy” an FBI agent’s life.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

Along his path to destruction, Barrett Brown let himself fall under the sway of Neal Rauhauser (a/k/a, “Carlito2000”) and was drawn into Rauhauser’s paranoid fantasies involving HB Gary, Jennifer Emick, Tom Ryan, et al. This brings us back around to something that will surely be of further interest to Patterico. Mike Stack today posted a message to someone who is engaged in a feud with Emick:

Neal Rauhauser is the reason I was SWAT-ted.
Your girlfriend is friends with Neal. . . .
You have a long-standing war with Jen Emick and the only reason that she was thrown into the mix was because again of what Neal Rauhauser did with the Michigan Police Department.

Stack was the first victim of SWATting in the wake of the WeinerGate scandal. Rauhauser became obsessed with the idea that Weiner was the victim of a hoax, eventually focusing on Patterico as the alleged mastermind of the (wholly imaginary) conspiracy against Weiner. In the comments of Stack’s post today, someone linked to a Pastebin document from August, transcribing an online chat in which Rauhauser (using the alias “BangoSkank”) was trying to gather information on his enemies. A few key excerpts:

20:59 you want a Maltego graph of this stuff? . . .
21:00 yer smack in the middle, I started with nachash dox
21:00 and melded it into my other stuff . . .
21:11 This Maltego graph is sort of the top level map
21:11 for the last two years, for me
21:12 There is a federal grand jury in D.C. and I presume one attached to the cyber task force in Chicago . . .
21:12 this graph contains what I know about the subjects, and I have left a number of their associates who appear only due to social media link analysis . . .
21:23 New York grand jury, too. Forgot that one.
21:23 So that’s a map of those I think may be culpable, their close associates, and then a ring of Twitter accounts that are well connected enough that they are interesting for comparison’s sake when I get new information . . .
22:19 I did this in an iterative fashion for the cluster of groups I watch
22:19 and then one day one of those connected eggs
22:19 matched a twitter account that pulled up when I brought a mailing list into Gist
22:20 and then the light came on, because it was the third time a specific funding source had popped up on the graph . . .
22:21 NY grand jury, DC grand jury, Chicago cyber task force
22:21 and it all come back around to the same central place

OK, you’re asking, “What the heck is Rauhauser talking about?” And I can’t fully answer that question, however (a) Rauhauser has repeatedly claimed to have high-level law enforcement contacts, (b) Rauhauser has routinely asserted that his enemies, including Patterico and others, are the targets of federal investigations, and (c) this particular online chat took place just a few weeks before Barrett Brown’s meltdown.

What Rauhauser seemed to be focused on in that particular chat were a number of enemies of “Anonymous,” including Emick, William Welna and various of their supposed associates. At one point, Rauhauser made this comment about “White Hat” hacker Thomas Ryan:

22:50 I catch Ryan from behind, he gets a skull fracture with something good and heavy

Hey, why the hate, Neal? Oh, maybe it’s because in October 2011, Ryan obtained “Occupy Wall Street” leadership planning e-mails that were published by Andrew Breitbart! And we remember that Rauhauser was involved (representing himself as an agent of Brett Kimberlin’s “Velvet Revolution” non-profit) in the “Occupy” movement.

So whereas Neal Rauhauser was allied with the “Occupy” thugs, Ryan was allied with Andrew Breitbart and opponents of “Occupy.”

In August, Neal was claiming that his enemies were under investigation by federal grand juries and a Chicago-based federal “cyber task force.” What happened instead? Within a matter of weeks, after Rauhauser tried to sic Barrett Brown onto his enemies, Brown melted down and was arrested on federal charges. At one point during his 13-minute video rant, Brown accused Thomas Ryan of being an “FBI informant.”

Think about this for a minute: In Barrett Brown’s perverse worldview, being an FBI informant — i.e., helping law enforcement investigate crime — makes someone an agent of evil.

Similarly, in Rauhauser’s worldview, Thomas Ryan deserves a “skull fracture,” while Patterico (who is himself an agent of law enforcement) can be falsely accused by Rauhauser of criminal wrongdoing — a “perp“! — and yet Rauhauser, having shown himself willing to lie to accomplish his purposes, expects his political allies to view him sympathetically as the victim of a “wingnut” conspiracy.

People like Brown and Rauhauser inhabit an inverted moral universe, where those who obey and uphold the law are the villains, while criminals — including Rauhauser’s associate, “Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin — are noble and heroic warriors against “wingnuts.”

At any rate, the commenter at Mike Stack’s blog who linked the Pastebin document asks of Rauhauser, “Can you just see this wanker in court trying to sell his ever-changing conspiracy theories?” Read it for a laugh. We have not heard the last of Neal.

 

Patterico on Tommy Christopher and the ‘Wheelerization’ of Steven Crowder

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You really need to read the article that Patterico put up about how Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher went “all-in” on the claim that a Michigan union thug’s assault of Steven Crowder was a hoax:

I would love to know where Tommy Christopher got the idea that Lee Stranahan and Breitbart.com had something to do with the Crowder video. Just who are the “[p]eople familiar with Breitbart ‘News’ videographers’ penchant for misleading edits” who “immediately smelled a rat” due to the (non)involvement of [Lee] Stranahan with this video?

How curious a coincidence, and how amazing that Patterico — while the rest of us spent the past four days all up in the Connecticut shooting and aftermath — maintained his focus on the Michigan story. But I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. Remember what I wrote last week:

After yesterday’s incident in which labor union activists tore down an Americans for Prosperity tent in Lansing and sucker-punched Stephen Crowder, this headline zoomed up the Memorandum aggregation:
Breitbart Folks Appear to Fake Violence in Lansing
Huh? This was a decidedly odd piece of blogging: The claim that somehow the union thug clobbering Crowder was part of a right-wing hoax, based on such “evidence” as the event having been reported by “James O’Keefe’s buddy” Lee Stranahan — because, hey, if anybody at Breitbart thinks it’s actually news, that means it must be phony, right?
Also, the video was edited. Anybody who edits a video is obviously engaged in some kind of evil conspiracy.
What the hell is this silly gibberish? Are these people crazy?

Marcy Wheeler — who is Marcy Wheeler? And how was it that she got this same Stranahan/Breitbart meme about “deceptively edited” video that was ballyhooed by Tommy Christopher? Isn’t it interesting that Tommy also Wheelerized the Patrick Moran story?

Go read Ron Brynaert’s Pastebin file (which I found via Google by searching “Marcy + Wheeler + Rauhauser”) and notice that the names of Tommy Christopher (9 references) and Lee Stranahan (11 references) also occur in connection with the search for the still-mysterious “Jennifer George” angle on the Anthony Weiner scandal. “Alicia Pain” is also an element, along with the SWATtings of Patterico and Mike Stack.

Now go read Patterico’s post, which he projects as the first of a five-part series. Did somebody hit the “SMITE” button on his keyboard?

‘Through a Plate Glass Window’: How Liberal Media De-Legitimize Dissent

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Patterico did a post yesterday about the “Accuse the Accusers” strategy that I meant to link and discuss at length, but I didn’t get around to it because new outrages were piling up quicker than I could keep track. In just the past couple of days:

  1. Stephen Crowder got sucker-punched in the head by Michigan union goon Tony Camargo;
  2. Hot dog vendor Clint Tarver was called the “n-word” when the Americans for Prosperity tent in Lansing was attacked by allies of the same goons who punched Crowder; and
  3. The son of Virginia Democrat Rep. Jim Moran pleaded guilty to an assault charge after police say Patrick Moran broke his girlfriend’s nose and fractured her skull during an argument outside a D.C. bar.

Perhaps you see a pattern here: Democrats and their political allies engaging in thuggish violence which no one could possibly defend or endorse. And in each case, liberals used a variation of the same distracting “Accuse the Accusers” defense: Whatever wrong was done by Democrats was minimized or dismissed as irrelevant in comparison to some greater wrong that liberals alleged had been done by the conservatives involved in calling attention to these incidents.

Call it “Wheelerization,” in tribute to the way Marcy Wheeler deliberately smeared Crowder as having somehow faked his own beating, simply because . . . well, James O’Keefe! Breitbart!

This magic incantation automatically de-legitimizes any story. Also, “selective editing,” as if there is such a thing as non-selective editing.

Today, the Left decided that Patrick Moran’s brutality toward his girlfriend was not a legitimate story because . . . Ace of Spades!

Leftwing Blogs Discover The Real Culprit
Behind Pat Moran’s Woman-Beating: Me

This Wheelerization of the Moran story was expertly performed by the ridiculous Tommy Christopher:

It’s a horrible story that highlights an important, serious issue, but shortly after the news was reported, Michelle Malkin‘s Twitter repository, Twitchy.com, had decided that the real villains were Rachel Maddow, Sandra Fluke, the media, Rep. Moran, and, somehow, me, while using Ms. Hoffman’s injuries as inspiration for pop-culture riffs. . . .
Finally, the folks at Twitchy chose to highlight a series of tweets that featured domestic violence-related riffs on Meadowlark Lemon, Star Wars, and even the headline from one of my columns.

Seriously, notice how this works: The story is not about the heinous brutality of Patrick Moran or the preposterously lenient sentence handed down to the son of a Democrat congressman (who, of course, has his own lengthy history of brutality). Nor is the story about the hypocrisy of liberals who routinely ignore or excuse such misconduct by Democrats while simultaneously accusing Republicans of being anti-woman.

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Because the story can never be about the wrong done by Democrats, when Democrats do wrong, the media need some excuse to ignore it, or some pretext to make Republicans the bad guys: “Ken Starr is on a witch hunt! Everybody lies about sex! McCarthyism!”

And, unfortunately, Fox News functions as a foil for this tactic: As soon as Media Matters, Crooks & Liars, Firedoglake, DailyKos and others in the merry band of disinformation blogs find some connection between a story and Fox News — “Crowder and Malkin are both hired stooges of the Murdoch empire!” — then no journalist at CBS, NBC, ABC or the New York Times can possibly treat the story as serious and important, or else his inbox/Twitter feed will blow up with angry messages accusing him of betraying the cause by repeating right-wing lies.

Did I ever mention that studies have shown journalists vote Democrat by margins of at least 7-to-1? And that most reporters, editors and producers are therefore emotionally predisposed to tell stories that favor Democrats and avoid stories that favor Republicans?

This is why, in the Patrick Moran case as in so many other cases, the Left endeavors to distract from the facts of the story by focusing on the political orientation of those telling the story: “Twitchy is run by Malkin and Malkin works for Fox — not a legitimate story!”

Also, Twitchy quoted Tweets by Ace of Spades in which he made sarcastic reference to Tommy Christopher, and therefore Tommy’s a victim, because conservatives hate Legtimate Journalists.

Logic so sharp it could split atoms.

We are watching the Spencer Ackerman idea of smashing conservatives “through a plate glass window” — never mind the truth, just win.

This brute-force approach to Narrative Management is astonishingly successful. Allahpundit is in such a fugue of despair about it that he has resorted to linking me to prove his case:

If you’re a reporter and you’re taking conservatives seriously, you’re doing it wrong. [Chris] Matthews goes so far as to identify Romney’s utterly benign aside in the second debate about “binders full of women” as one of the reasons the media should move, en masse, even further to the left. That’s not a serious critique; it’s a fig leaf of outrage designed to apply pressure towards the desired political outcome. And it works.

You should read the whole thing because, after all, it’s not every day year I get linked by Allahpundit. Meanwhile, returning to the original model of Wheelerization, Patterico recounts this colloquy:

Wheeler: You said Crowder shouldn’t report the assault!
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did!
Wheeler: Incredible that an ADA doesn’t think crimes should be reported!
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did!
Wheeler: Wow. I think I’ll tell your boss that you don’t believe in reporting crimes.
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: Sheesh. A law enforcement officer saying crimes shouldn’t be reported. Can you believe it?
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: Looks like it’s time to ask your boss why their ADA thinks crimes should not be reported.
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: [more of the same, ad infinitum]

Marcy Wheeler’s narrative involved the argument that Crowder should have filed an assault charge against his attacker before reporting it as news, and she got it in her mind — an idée fixe — that Patterico had somehow discouraged Crowder from filing charges. Because he is by trade a prosecuting attorney, it might somehow be construed as wrongful for him to be “saying crimes shouldn’t be reported,” and so Wheeler began repeating this allegation as if the repetition proved it was true, and as if Patterico had an obligation to prove himself innocent.

“Accuse the accusers,” see?

As for Marcy Wheeler’s absurd claim, let me offer this example: Hunter S. Thompson was once brutally stomped by the Hell’s Angels, and never reported it to the police. Thompson was a journalist writing a book about the Hell’s Angels, and it might not have been altogether ethical for him to be trying to put several of them in jail for assault as a complainant while he was also being paid to tell their story.

And let’s face it, Thompson was on shaky ground from a legal standpoint, because he witnessed a good deal of other criminal behavior by the Angels that he never bothered reporting to police.

The story you’re covering is more important than whatever hassles you suffer as a consequence, and if those hassles involve getting your head bashed in — well, hey, that’s part of the coverage, too. In that sense, Crowder’s big day in Lansing was totally gonzo.

Speaking of hassles and important gonzo stories, I was intrigued yesterday by that Pastebin file in which Ron Brynaert mentioned Marcy Wheeler in connection with Neal Rauhauser and Patterico and SWATting and the Anthony Weiner scandal. Just happened to find that when, on a crazy hunch, I Googled “Marcy + Wheeler + Rauhauser.”

Maybe just a coincidence. Maybe not.




 


REPORT: @NadiaNaffe’s Lawsuit Against @Patterico Flounders in L.A. Hearing

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The diligent John Hoge calls our attention to the report at Popehat which indicates that the plaintiff was unable to show a valid claim during a Monday hearing in federal court.

Admonishments against sarcasm are duly noted.

Meanwhile — and I’m sure this is just a coincidence, Neal Rauhauser — the pro-Kimberlin trolls decided to create a slam-dunk case of Twitter terms-of-service violations against themselves. One account has already been suspended, and others are likely to suffer the same fate shortly.

It is important to remember why the cyberstalking harassers do what they do. It’s about defending their patron saint, Brett Kimberlin.

So every time they start jumping up on Twitter, I respond by Tweeting out the facts about their hero: “When ‘Jessica’ Was 10, 11, 12.”

How’s that “brass knuckles reputation management” workin’ for ya?

‘At a Time of My Choosing’

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Patterico has a few careful words about the constant harassment:

Threats just give me something new to talk about. At a time of my choosing.
Do you folks understand that yet? You’ve tried to intimidate and threaten me for over two years now. No letter to my boss will stop me. No threat will stop me.
I’m not going away.

Exactly. Sociopathic monsters like Bill Schmalfeldt think they’re doing a smart thing with their endless cyberstalking against people who have better things to do with their lives. But the targets have discretion over what to ignore, when to respond and how. And when the tables are turned — when Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser and their troll gang find themselves exposed by those whom they’ve tried so desperately to destroy — it ill behooves the monsters to cry, “No fair!”

Read the rest of Patterico’s post.

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:

 

 


‘Tidy’ and Other Rauhauser Signatures

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Neal Rauhauser was a speaker at the 2010 Netroots Nation conference

Everybody has writing habits, and people tend to develop a recognizable style. For example, some people have trouble distinguishing “it’s” (contraction of it is) from “its” (possessive of it) or “you’re”/”your,” and repeated errors of that kind become a sort of fingerprint by which one can recognize their writing. Jack Cashill famously exposed Bill Ayers as the ghostwriter of Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father by comparing the literary style to Ayers’s Fugitive Days.

This is how it is possible to state as a fact that it was Neal Rauhauser who, behind the pseudonym “Carlito2000,” was feeding disinformation to former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown in the days before Brown was arrested for threatening an FBI agent. In transcripts of an online chat posted by Brown on Sept. 10 — just two days before his arrest — “Carlito2000” told Brown:

Jen Emick & William Welna getting cornholed by #treehouse on 2600.net … logs posted by Bitchiest aka Kelly Hallisey … ringleaders there are Bratty (Kelly), Render64 (her man), Pythorian, girlfriday, DingoLingo & humu … Emick has been circulating among right wingers for a while now … Approached by @ZAPEM, tentatively Michele Lessick a while ago. Very likely was working with @Liberty_Chick (Mandy Nagy) and @dmatthewstewart (Douglas Matthew Stewart) in pursuit of Anonymous … they hassle @AnonyOps, @AnonyNewsNet, claiming they are Neal Rauhauser, and otherwise act stupid … Emick has appeared just once as “Cream” on @BrooksBayne site thetrenches.us, as secret source on Rauhauser … there is a huge split there – Darby/Stranahan get crosswise with Bayne, nasty civil war stared a month ago … nachash (@doxbin) release big torrent on @Sanguinarious (Welna) and there was a Jen Emick funpack … funpack contains a doc about pursuit of Brett Kimberlin, straight out of HBGary playbook, and it was NOT in the initial dump UGnazi took from Emick … source is believed to be Tom Ryan, canna go into details on how we sorted that out … So, its in Emicks’s directory but the writing ain’t her or ZAPEM, seems very much to be @Liberty_Chick style … So, its in Emicks’s directory but the writing ain’t her or ZAPEM, seems very much to be @Liberty_Chick style … sadly, I am a subject matter expert on this anondrmama … So Darby is under suspicion as being the SWAT caller that triggered #Swatgate … … calls on Mike Stack aka @CryingWolfeBlog 6/23/2011 @Patterico 6/30/2011 @EWErickson on 5/26/2012(?) … and alleged event for @AaronWorthing on 5/29/2012, but no audio has been released … SWAT of Stack was done to cover their tracks – they took out Weiner because he triggered the extortion investigation into former FBI agent turned Congressman Mike Grimm … 2012 calls are due to some stuff with James O’Keefe – Rauhauser appear at some hearing in NJ about him [ @Patterico dox @NadiaNaffe, Rauhauser hooked her up with @LeidermanDevine, epic lawsuit ensued … So New Hampshire state grand jury on O’Keefe, NY federal grand jury on Grimm, D.C. federal grand jury on O’Keefe, and Chicago cybercrime task force wants swatters, they get info on Darby … Darby is FBI snitch from RNC 2008, was involved in making OccupyUnmasked movie, which we are trolling the fuck out of … he was the SWAT caller, we think, and he was implicated in the murder of Palestinian peace activist Riad Haad, in Texas, about six years ago … Stranahan is a dopey former liberal porn guy scam artist who also worked on the movie … Keep in mind Grimm (former FBI) is going down in NY-11, Mike Rogers (former FBI) called for Manning’s execution and he’s from MI-08 … and Coleen Rowley in MN-02 is former FBI turned whistleblower … we want Grimm, Rogers out /w Anon boot print on their asses, and we push Rowley in 🙂 … Frey was 2nd of 4 politicall ymotivated … and that is the best evidence – Darby is a ringer for the swat caller … @OsborneInk did the audio mashup … best jurnos on this mess … @OsborneInk @LiberalGrouch @beezling @BreitbartUnmask @ronbryn (crazy as fuck) … it’s a lot, I know … but we on it non-stop, so if you need clarification we will provide

The boldfaced names highlight subjects of Neal Rauhauser’s conspiracy-theory obsessions. Nobody else but Neal would connect @ZAPEM (who helped expose Rauhauser’s role in the 2010 “TwitterGate” scandal) with James O’Keefe, Brandon Darby, HB Gary, Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY). All of these subjects figure in a 1,000-word document Rauhauser sent to government officials in June.

We could pause to wonder why Neal spins these wild conspiracy theories, supposedly connecting a New York congressman with a Los Angeles County deputy D.A. and various bloggers in an ever-expanding cast of characters. It’s like a Hitchcock thriller directed by Cecil B. DeMille, if Hitchcock and DeMille collaborated on the script during a three-week psychedelic drug binge with Oliver Stone.

Whatever method there is to Rauhauser’s madness, however, his writing style is quite distinctive, as alleged mastermind Patterico explains:

“Tidy little package.”
Bwahahahahahahahaha.
Anyone who has followed Neal Rauhauser for any length of time sees the words “tidy little package” and chuckles — or perhaps laughs out loud, as I just did. You see, Rauhauser loves to use the word “tidy” in connection with compilations of evidence.

There are “more than 9,000” reasons to read the whole thing.

 

@Karoli: Weiner Truther? And Other Questions of Remaining Interest

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“I am here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused.”
— Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), announcing his resignation from Congress, June 15, 2011

Two days ago, I called attention to an article by Karoli, a Crooks and Liars contributor, who wrote an article in defense of Neal Rauhauser and Brett Kimberlin. I made this point:

Karoli’s excuse-making amounts to a Rauhauser-influenced conspiracy theory, as she accuses Andrew Breitbart, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Aaron Walker and others of engaging in a plot against Kimberlin and Rauhauser, which she calls a “Right-Wing Blueprint.”

This is important: Karoli is an intelligent progressive activist, a fluent writer viewed as a serious person, a valued member of the online Left. She is not a clown or a troll. Therefore, to find Karoli parroting Rauhauser’s version of events, including demonstrable falsehoods, is disturbing. Next thing you know, Karoli will be shouting into a webcam like Barrett Brown, ranting about HB Gary and Jennifer Emick.

Humor aside, it is to be remembered that Neal Rauhauser was one of the original “Weiner Truthers,” arguing that Anthony Weiner was the victim of some kind of hacker honey-trap masterminded by right-wingers. Rosie Gray of Buzzfeed, May 26, 2012:

Joseph Cannon describes the “weird subculture of bloggers”that sprung up around Weinergate.
Cannon was a more vocal proponent of the theory when the story broke, but “Their obsession with that scandal soon went way beyond Weiner, and perhaps even beyond conventional left-right politics,” he writes. “A very personal twilight war broke out.”
A major locus of modern Weiner trutherism is BreitbartUnmasked.com, a site “dedicated to unmasking the underbelly of Andrew Breitbart and his crew of rogues, criminals, wannabe journalists, various right wing extremists and the religious intolerant,” per its “About Us” section. Breitbart Unmasked features a large GIF of Breitbart’s face morphing into a mask, and lists the name of everyone in Breitbartworld, from editors of Breitbart.com to people only tangentially related.
One of its related Twitter accounts, @OccupyRebellion, regularly tweets about Weinergate and the alleged conspiracies therein.

Yeah. You criticize Neal Rauhauser, “Occupy Rebellion” is gonna get all up in your face on Twitter. So now look at this from Karoli’s article:

From the moment the Anthony Weiner scandal broke, Neal Rauhauser smelled a rat, and as it turns out, he was right. If you are Andrew Breitbart and information comes to you that there’s a certain loudmouthed New York Congressman who happens to have a propensity to flirt with young women online, you might give serious thought to providing a few “friendly” young women for him to flirt with.
No one doubts Anthony Weiner had a weakness for flirtation. Rauhauser doesn’t deny that. But that weakness was exploited by Andrew Breitbart in order to discredit and ultimately force Weiner into an early retirement. A few sock puppet girls, some provocative tweets, and away we go.
How James O’Keefe-ian. A Breitbart signature takedown with cooperation from the good Congressman himself.
I’m certain the Breitbots expected all left-wing outrage over the setup to evaporate when Rep. Weiner resigned. Remember Andrew Breitbart hijacking that press conference?
Yet. One person wouldn’t let it go, and that one person was Neal Rauhauser, who kept on with it and keeps on with it until this day.

Did you catch that? The article Karoli links as proving Neal was right? Rauhauser’s own Daily Kos diary from July 28, 2011, under his “Stranded Wind” alias, which begins this way:

I’ve been all over Patterico for the last several weeks, as he looks to be a pretty good candidate for the planner/operator behind Weinergate, but the other players have been getting attention, too.

Wow: Rauhauser’s own claim to have identified Patterico as orchestrating the (non-existent) right-wing conspiracy against Weiner is cited by Karoli as proof that Neal was right! So if Rauhauser were to assert that he once worked as a body double for Brad Pitt, Karoli would link that as “proof” of Neal’s muscular physique. This is an invalid circular argument which accepts mere assertion as “evidence.”

However, we can take Rauhauser at his word that he was “all over Patterico” in July 2011, as witness his Daily Kos diaries:

Seven posts in the span of 23 days — why? Weiner confessed and resigned in mid-June 2011 and, since then, Weiner himself has never claimed that he was the victim of anything except his own stupidity.

Why, more than two weeks after Weiner’s admission of the unfortunate truth, would Rauhauser still be pushing the conspiracy theory explanation of WeinerGate and implausibly pretending that Patterico was to blame for it? It’s hard to explain by any normal logic. And what was it that made Patterico so peculiarly a target of Rauhauser’s wrath? Remember that on June 4, 2011 — nine days into the WeinerGate scandal — Rauhuser published this absurd claim without offering any evidence:

Congressman Weiner was stalked and set up by a Christian Infowar Militia cell based largely in Oklahoma City.

So, on June 4, Neal stakes his reputation on the (non-existent) “Christian Infowar Militia cell.” A month later, however, Neal is offering a new villain: Patrick “Patterico” Frey. How and why did Rauhauser change his mind? If there was no evidence that any Oklahoma-based “cell” stalked and “set up” Weiner — and Neal never offered anything to support that wild-eyed nonsense — what credibility did Rauhauser bring to his subsequent theory that Patterico was the secret mastermind, a claim for which Neal similarly never produced a scintilla of evidence? What could possibly explain the sudden shift in Rauhauser’s interests? Why should anyone believe anything Rauhauser has to say about any of this?

None of these obvious questions seem to have crossed Karoli’s mind. She simply accepts Neal’s finger-pointing at Patterico, without ever wondering why Patterico was singled out this way. Could it have something to do with “Alicia Pain,” the mysterious character who began cyberstalking Patterico after Weiner resigned? Patterico, June 30, 2011:

The person claiming to be “Jennifer George” who called Lee was a hoaxer.
There really was a person who threatened the real Jennifer George, and that person pretended to be Lee Stranahan.
That person hates Lee, and Breitbart.
I have been very busy and probably don’t know all the reasons why this couldn’t possibly be the case. So tell me.
UPDATE: Point #1 could be wrong, and the theory still holds.
UPDATE x2: I’m feeling better about the theory with each passing second.
Hi, Neal!

“Alicia Pain” shows up in the comments, as do I: Someone linked my blog in the comments, sending traffic to my site that I noticed, so I showed up at Patterico’s to ask why Rauhauser was suspected of involvement in the whole “Jennifer George” incident — evidently an attempt to discredit Stranahan, who had been following up loose ends surrounding WeinerGate.

Three hours after Patterico brought up Rauhauser’s name in connection with “Jennifer George,” Patterico was SWATted.

Probably just a coincidence, I’m sure. Ask the Gaped Crusader.

UPDATE (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: John Hoge says, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn up in the comments section.” My apologies to anyone confused by what’s going on down below. I try to avoid the “amateur detective” motif in blogging; I’m a journalist, not a cop or a spy.

UPDATE III: Linked by Patterico — thanks! — and since someone in the comments asked for a brief summary of Who’s Who in this twisted saga, I’ll direct you to Patterico’s July 12 post, “The Kimberlin Story: The Short Version.”

Now a Memeorandum thread.

 

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