Category: Neutral Objective Journalism

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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Fear and Loathing at the #NRISummit: Can We Survive the Sarcasm Deficit?

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Perhaps National Review‘s famed cartoonist Roman Genn can do a savage caricature of the donnybrook brawl I’ve been trying to incite for this weekend’s National Review Institute “Future of Conservatism” Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Was it a smart career move to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee? No, of course not, but there are a lot of things I’ve done over the years that could be characterized as the diametric opposite of “smart career moves.” I’ve always preferred the Eric Stratton Philosophy of Life:

Boon: I gotta work on my game.
Otter: No, no, no! Don’t think of it as work. The whole point is just to enjoy yourself.

Some readers misunderstood my purpose in subjecting Jonah Goldberg to the kind of blunt sarcasm I habitually aim at liberals. Do I want a fight with Jonah? Oh, hell, no — he’s the size of a linebacker, and I’m not enough of a journalistic celebrity to rely on the “David Gregory Loophole” in D.C.’s strict gun-control policy. So I’ll be unarmed and defenseless when I show up at the National Review Summit this afternoon.

Although I understand they’ve hired heavy security at the Omni Shoreham to deal with any troublemakers, what’s to stop Jonah Goldberg from slipping the guards $100 to look the other way while he pounds my head up against a brick wall?

No, I don’t want to go mano a mano with that savage giant. My point in depicting the NRI Summit as a conclave of effete snobs was to incite grassroots resentment, to inspire a populist mob to pay their $250 and show up at the Omni Shoreham howling for blood: Stir up some kind of controversy — “fireworks” as the headline-writers say — that will provide an approximation of actual news for me to report.

Readers who contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund aren’t paying me to go down to D.C. so I can write up the tedious proceedings of a series of panel discussions. No, the tip-jar hitters want some real news: At least a couple of angry shouting matches, if not indeed a brutal mob beatdown on Joe Scarborough. It was a smart idea to invite America’s Least Popular “Republican” TV Personality™ to this event, if only on the basis on the venerable principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary. Speaking of obituaries . . .

When I told a certain investigative journalist friend of mine I was coming to town for the NRI Summit, he said, “You mean the one with the panel on ‘what’s wrong with the Right,’ where the answer to the question is, ‘The people on stage’?”

Panel: What is Wrong with the Right?
Moderator: Reihan Salam, National Review Online
Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard
Yuval Levin, National Affairs
John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’
Ross Douthat, New York Times

Notice — and I hate to be the one to point this out — that there isn’t a single female or Latino on that panel? So there’s one answer to your question: “Intellectuals who are clueless about optics.” This is not to endorse a tokenistic system of affirmative action among the rightward intelligentsia, but when you exclude key demographics and the closest thing to a “youth” presence you can offer is 33-year-old Harvard classmates Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat . . .

Finish that sentence however you want.

If the proprietors of Conservatism, Inc., want to run their operation as an Old Boys Club for Ivy Leaguers, who am I to object? It’s a free country. My advice was never solicited, and it’s unlikely the heirs of the Buckley Legacy would listen if I offered unsolicited advice. So I kick ’em in the knee, give ’em free publicity, and hope maybe some of our readers will pay $250 for the right to ask a few pointed questions.

And, honestly, it won’t be a totally lame snobfest. A few of the participants in this weekend’s NRI Summit proceedings:

Mark Steyn, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham, Michael Barone, Kathryn Lopez, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Mona Charen, Mia Love, Peter Thiel, Mark Krikorian, James Pethokoukis, Amity Shlaes, Kevin Williamson, Robert Costa, Jay Nordlinger, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, John O’Sullivan, Larry Kudlow, Ed Whelan, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, John Fund, Tim Phillips, Heather Higgins, Kellyanne Conway, Cleta Mitchell, Jim Geraghty, Jim DeMint, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Arthur Brooks, Maggie Gallagher, Brad Wilcox and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

Maybe you think all of those people are part of the problem, and you can pay $250 to get in their face and tell ’em so. But surely any conservative could look at that list and see at least a few names that might be part of the solution, and you can pay $250 to show up and cheer them.

The point is that I’m not anti-NRI Summit. I am anti-boredom, however, and even if the angry dissent and controversy — “fireworks”! — are as dramatically phony as professional wrestling, we need some infighting and bloodletting and perhaps even random violence among the panelists, if only to justify my spending a weekend in D.C.

If you’re not going to pay $250 to attend this event, it would be absurd for me to expect you to hit my tip jar for $10 or $20 just so I could write up a bunch of intellectual navel-gazing and tepid policy discussions. No, you want some real live action for me to report:

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Conservative journalist John Podoretz is “expected to recover” from the critical injuries he suffered during a savage fistfight that broke out Saturday afternoon during a panel discussion on immigration policy at the National Review Institute Summit.
Podhoretz was “conscious and responsive,” said a spokesman at George Washington University Hospital, where the Commentary magazine editor was rushed by paramedics after he charged the stage during a presentation by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.
“It was totally unexpected,” said Krikorian, who was questioned and released by Metropolitan Police. “All I did was defend myself.”
Stunned witnesses said Podhoretz seemed to become agitated when Krikorian made several sarcastic references to the “open borders lobby” and “gutless neocons” whom he blamed for recent political setbacks suffered by the Republican Party.
“John started trembling and then his face became contorted by rage,” said Jim Geraghty, a National Review staffer who was moderating the panel. Geraghty said that Podhoretz shouted “anti-Armenian slurs” before charging across the ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel and attempting to attack Krikorian, who responded by slamming Podhoretz into the floor. . . .

Could that really happen? We certainly can’t rule it out. Bad blood between Krikorian and the “gutless neocons” has been brewing for years. Everybody knows who he’s talking about. Podhoretz’s irrational Fear and Loathing of Armenians isn’t exactly a secret, either.

That’s why readers want to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund and send me down to D.C. for the weekend: If there’s going to be trouble — and it’s at least an outside possibility these vicious internecine rivalries might lead to an all-out riot at the National Review Institute Summit — you’re gonna want me to provide an on-the-scene report of this epic battle. Because I’m strictly a Neutral Objective Journalist.





 

 


National Review Institute Summit: Will This Controversial Event Make Headlines?

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My decision yesterday to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee promises to yield enormous dividends both ways. Goldberg has denounced my criticisms as “preening b.s.,” and he’s vowed to fire back at length later today, so I look forward to a (no doubt well-deserved) ass-chewing.

Do I expect Jonah to say nice things about me? No, but neither did I expected to be invited on a Caribbean cruise after the election. The world is generally divided that way: The cruise-worthy intellectuals and everybody else, and I’ve adjusted to life among the landlubbers.

Speaking of which, the National Review Institute “Future of Conservatism” Summit convenes next Friday at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., and it would be a terrible thing if the summit were to be embroiled in controversy because a lot of pissed-off conservatives showed up and started asking questions like, “Who was it that convinced us that nominating Mitt Romney would be a good idea?”

Who would pay $250 to go raise hell at the NRI Summit? Maybe the Ron Paul crowd would think that’s a fine way to spend a weekend. Did I mention that college students can attend the NRI Summit for free?

Our friends at the National Review Institute are providing a limited number of full “scholarships” for the upcoming “Future of Conservatism” conference this January 25-27 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. This covers the conference fee, which includes participation in all events, receptions, and meals. This is an excellent opportunity for a conservative college student to learn and network.

OK, so the “limited number” of scholarships probably diminishes the chances of Ron Paul supporters packing the NRI Summit with dopehead stooges yelling ugly things about “neocon warmongers,” but this doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities for headline-making controversy during the event. Everybody’s favorite MSNBC host Joe Scarborough’s going to be there, after all. For some reason, while Scarborough is an honored participant at the NRI Summit, they didn’t invite Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin. Probably an accidental oversight . . .

So when the “Joe Scarborough’s OK, But We Don’t Like Mark Levin” conference convenes next Friday at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., maybe you’ll want to be there to raise hell. If there are angry shouting matches in the hotel corridors and fistfights in the lobby bar, that might actually be newsworthy.

And I’m strictly a Neutral Objective Journalist . . .

 


Neal Rauhauser: FBI Informant?

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New information about Neal Rauhauser’s activities has been published recently, and I’m trying to figure out where to begin.

Recall that it was Rauhauser’s involvement in the legal battle between Brett Kimberlin and Aaron Walker that first interested me in that story. Rauhauser’s interest in the 2011 WeinerGate scandal brought him into conflict with SWATting target Mike Stack, who today published links to e-mails between Rauhauser and an online researcher named Kelly Hallissey.

This involves a 50-page PDF document published by a site allied with Anonymous, which has also published several other files related to Rauhauser, including: Phone conversations involving “Project Vigilant” — a government-connected information research operation — and a phone conversation in which Neal admits to being “Carlito2000,” who played a key role in the Barrett Brown meltdown. (Brown, a former spokesman for Anonymous, was arrested in September for a video rant in which he threatened to “destroy” an FBI agent.)

What seems to be clear from the e-mails is that Rauhauser was trying to recruit Hallissey to particpate in one of his schemes. At one point in July — see Page 44 of the PDF document — Rauhauser put Hallissey in touch with an FBI agent. The e-mail shows Neal falsely accusing Brandon Darby of three SWATtings. In a September 16 phone call, Rauhauser tried to direct Hallissey to online chat logs involving Barrett Brown, including the one with Neal as “Carlito2000.”

OK, so what’s going on here? Why has someone within Anonymous started publishing these recorded phone calls and other documents?

We can speculate on motives, but my best guess is that Rauhauser is suspected of being a government snitch, and this evidence is being published by someone who is trying to make Rauhauser “radioactive” — an untouchable, an enemy of Anonymous — so that every hacker will be warned to stay away from Rauhauser.

There is also the clear suggestion that Rauhauser is under federal investigation, so that anyone communicating with him might be under surveillance. Thus, by the logic of Anonymous, hackers connected to Rauhauser are also potential security risks and should be avoided.

How all this fits together, I don’t know yet. but I was intrigued by the publication of an e-mail from January 2012 — a year ago —  in which Rauhauser is asked to meet with two FBI agents. Within two months of that date, the LulzSec raids went down. Hmmm . . .

One final note: Neal is a very convincing liar. In his conversation with Kelly Hallissey, Rauhauser tells outright lies with such apparent sincerity that it sounds like he actually believes what he’s saying. And if you didn’t know the truth, you might be tempted to believe him, too.

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.

 

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.

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.