Category: Shoe Leather Fund

False-Flag Troll, IRL

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I can pretty much guarantee that this man photographed at a Romney rally in Lancaster, Ohio, is not in fact a Republican, but rather is a plant sent out by the Democrats as a dirty trick.

  • Clue #1: Wearing a “Romney/Ryan” sticker on the back of his T-shirt. Nobody does this. Nobody.
  • Clue #2: It’s kind of chilly in Ohio this time of year, and the guy’s wearing only a T-shirt, while those around him are wearing coats.

My guess is that this guy also wore a coat when he entered the rally, then stationed himself toward the back of the crowd (in front of the riser where the press photographers are stationed) and then removed his coat to expose the T-shirt, with the explicit purpose of having it photographed.

. . . aaanndd, Clue #3: No name? A press photographer is going to take a picture like this and make no effort to ID the guy? Nuh-uh.

Speaking of which: I decided to go over to the American Spectator blog last night and write a lengthy explanation of exactly why the vicious creep James Pogue can go straight to hell.

Finally: We had an unfortunate incident in which a commenter got smacked by Wombat’s Troll Hammer for some things the commenter was saying about Mormonism. This was an unfortunate incident, I say, because the commenter was in fact a tip-jar hitter, who generously contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund to support last month’s Ohio trip. And so I’ve urged Wombat to restore the commenter’s privileges, after making a polite explanation of the problem.

This is as good a place as any, perhaps, to reiterate the policy: I have neither the time nor interest to monitor comments for off-topic or offensive content. Thus, Wombat is the designated Troll-Smasher, and the policy is whatever Wombat says it is. So if you’re in the comments having an argument and Wombat says to knock it off, please comply.

We are at the GAME FACES stage of the campaign, folks. Election Day is barely three weeks away, and we can expect the Leftists to be out in force with all sorts of false-flag/concern-troll antics, so Wombat is apt to on hair-trigger alert, ready to smash the hell out of anything that looks even vaguely trollish. Ergo, Wombat’s warnings should be taken quite seriously, lest we have any further unfortunate incidents.

Also, at some point this upcoming week, my plan is to go off on a long campaign-trail trip that might go all the way to Election Day, so now would be a good time to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund, as it usually takes three or four business days for the cash to get from the tip jar to my bank account. Thanks for your patience and generosity.

Polls are quite encouraging for Romney (Nate Silver continues his slo-mo walkback with the Forecasting Model) which means that the end of our Long National Nightmare may now be within sight.

 

Once we get to Nov. 7, we can go back to snarking at celebrity meltdowns and all the other fun stuff that makes America great. But meantime . . .

GAME FACES.




 

UPDATE: Speaking of game faces, I got so distracted yesterday I forgot to link Friday’s column at The American Spectator:

Vice President Joe Biden took Americans on a one-way trip to Malarkey-ville [Thursday] night, with a weirdly aggressive debate performance in which, according to one count, he interrupted his Republican rival 86 times. Even many of those who generally approved of what Democrat spinners referred to as Biden’s “happy warrior” act expressed concern that the vice president was, to quote CNN’s Gloria Borger, “condescending at times” toward Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
Make that “condescending at all times,” and you may have a consensus that would include even the debate’s liberal moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News. Biden’s behavior resembled the hypomanic phase of bipolar disorder, as he grinned incongruously or faked laughter in reaction to Ryan’s answers, rudely scoffed at the Republican’s policy proposals as “bluster” and “loose talk,” and bulldozed past whatever feeble attempts Raddatz made to halt his repeated filibusters.
Arrogant? Overbearing? Angry? If those are your ideal qualities in a vice president, Biden’s your man. . . .

Please read the whole thing.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And the professor is right:

Whenever the Dems are in trouble, they start this sort of thing. They’re in trouble now. Expect the bylined Democratic operatives formerly known as journalists to help as much as they can.

UPDATE III: Thanks to the commenter who pointed this out:

Another Hate Hoax? Democrat Worker
Attacked Denver Campaign Office


Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Worldwide Headquarters of Crazy, Inc.

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My plans to get to Ohio and cover the three-day Romney-Ryan Buckeye State bus tour that begins tomorrow have thus far been thwarted.

It’s one of those long complicated stories you don’t want to hear, but if there is any conservative in the Mid-Atlantic region willing to make the run, please contact me on Twitter. I’ve offered cash money to friends who tell me, alas, they’ve got more important things to do, and I’m half-tempted to drive this broken-down KIA (in dire need of major repairs) as far as it will take me, abandoning it if it breaks down, then trying to hitchhike my way along the campaign trail. The situation has become that desperate and, as I keep telling myself, Woodward and Bernstein never had to deal with this kind of crap.

Also, Woodward and Bernstein never had to deal with crazy people on Twitter. Without further explanation . . .

Twitter wars with topless starlets and psycho terrorists make it hard to keep in mind that I’m supposed to be covering a presidential election.
 





 

UPDATE: In a comment on yesterday’s post about Kimberlin associate Neal Rauhauser, Bill Hoge cautioned that he is not a psychologist in offering this information:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM IV-TR), defines antisocial personality disorder as follows:

  • A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
    1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
    2. deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
    3. impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead;
    4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
    5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
    6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
    7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;
  • B) The individual is at least age 18 years.
  • C) There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.
  • D) The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

Yeah, I’m not a psychologist either, but if Crazy-Evil Disorder (otherwise known as Kimberlin-Rauhauser Syndrome) isn’t listed in the DSM-IV, it should be in the next update.

UPDATE II: Trying to get my mind off the craziness and back onto the presidential campaign, my Tweet of this video has been re-Tweeted more than 130 times:

#tcot Some Helpful Random Advice

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Ever had one of those Rodney Dangerfield days? Yeah, I’ve had about four consecutive months of them. It ain’t easy being me.

Because I had to move — thank you, Brett Kimberlin! — a check for money earned in July, which should have arrived earlier this month, got sent to the wrong address. Today, I’m trying to scrounge up enough cash to get on the road to Ohio to cover the Romney-Ryan bus tour, while constantly being attacked by a swarm of (a) leftist trolls and (b) misguided conservatives who can’t seem to comprehend the meaning of “social engineeering.”

Young people should be advised that if they ever achieve any small measure of success in their lives, they will be hated more for their achievements and virtues than for their faults and failures. Trying to keep focused on actual work under such conditions is extraordinarily difficult. It has taken tremendous effort to continue doing things that are positive and helpful, rather than constantly swatting back at certain people who seem to have decided that my services are of negligible value, so that I may be thrown under the bus — casually, at a whim — for refusing to abandon my friends.

What good would my friendship be, if I were not a loyal friend? And why would adults, who are certainly old enough to understand the value of morale to the success of any endeavor, go out of their way to demoralize me at a time like this? If this is not pure malicious spite, what is it?

“Experience keeps a hard school, but a fool will learn in no other,” Benjamin Franklin sagely advised, and you may inquire of Barrett Brown what lessons he learned on his road to self-destruction. You may write to him at this address:

Barrett Brown #45047177
Mansfield Law Enforcement Center
1601 Heritage Parkway
Mansfield, TX 76063

Tell Barrett I said “hi.” The misguided fool let himself be drawn into someone else’s quixotic delusion and drove himself insane.

I never hated him, but Barrett evidently decided three years ago that I would make a convenient target and, by the time he finished destroying himself, he had forgotten why he hated me.

It’s both humbling and scary to see things like that. God knows how tentative my own grip on sanity has been at times, and how lost I would be if not for God’s blessings, including readers whom I thank sincerely for your continued prayers and support,

— Robert Stacy McCain

 





 

Thank You, Everybody! (And Thank God)

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STARKE, Florida
This town is infamously the location of Florida State Prison, but don’t worry, I’m not on a chain gang. Spent the night at a Best Western motel here beside Highway 301 and — wow! — I’m impressed with the reader response to my post about the problems with the 2004 KIA Optima. The car’s got 194,000 miles on it, and if it will just get us home . . .

Well, best not to get into contingencies. What happens, happens, and everything happens for a reason, so I won’t worry about “if.”

“If” is the biggest two-letter word in the English language.

A lot of people talk about “stepping out on faith,” but few of them ever actually do it. There is an ad on TV which humorously plays on the role of the mom as having to say “no” to all her children’s requests. Toward the end of the commercial, the woman’s husband asks, “Can I quit my job and start a blog?”

My wife always laughs at that. Yeah.

Anyway . . .

News — I’m supposed to be reporting it, or at least aggregating it. Did you know that Michelle Fields got 86’d at the Daily Caller?

You may remember Michelle as the reporter who got trapped amid the frothing mob of Occupiers when the hippie scum tried to storm the AFP Summit last November.

Why would Tucker Carlson fire her? I dunno. What happens, happens. Jammie Wearing Fools has a great headline today:

Seven Dead From Isaac; Also
Known as a Slow Night in Chicago

Speaking of Chicago — which is, of course, now classified as a racist dog-whistle word, according to Chris Matthews — here’s a story by Elizabeth Harrington of CNS News:

As part of her anti-obesity Let’s Move campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama is now presenting a brief online course: “Supermarket Shopping 101.”The course, which now appears on the letsmove.gov website, provides novice shoppers with tips such as “steer clear of the cookie, snack and soda aisle.”
“Supermarket Shopping 101: Read This Before You Hit the Grocery Store,” written by Lisa Cericola, was first published among the materials the first lady presented online last week when she was a “guest editor” at iVillage.com. Now, it has been republished on the Let’s Move blog.
As CNSNews.com previously reported, iVillage.com, which featured Mrs. Obama as a guest editor, also features graphic sex tips, including from prostitutes.

Otherwise known as “a slow night in Chicago.” And speaking of “graphic sex tips . . . from prostitutes” . . .

Forgive me for not knowing the source of that artwork. Somebody “shared” it on Facebook with Ali Akbar, and it was funny: The contrast between GOP congressional candidate Mia Love and Sandra Fluke is rather illuminating, yes?

Well, checkout time at the Best Western is 11 a.m., and we’re already running late, so there is no time to thank everyone individually, but know that you have my gratitude for your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund. And if you can’t afford to give, your prayers are equally appreciated. This grand experiment in reader-supported journalism requires both money and prayer, and we ought not doubt the power of the latter, because what happens, happens.

 

 

Ohio-Bound: Hitting the Road With Mitt

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By the time you read this, I’ll be about halfway to Beallsville, Ohio, where Mitt Romney has the first of his three campaign stops today:

  • 12:30 p.m. ET: American Energy Corporation
    43521 Mayhugh Road
    Beallsville, Ohio
  • 3:30 p.m. ET: Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl
    532 Mcintire Avenue
    Zanesville, Ohio
  • 7:00 p.m. ET: Ross County Court House
    2 North Paint Street
    Chillicothe, Ohio

Here’s the news about Romney’s afternoon stop from Hannah Sparling of the Zanesville Times Recorder:

ZANESVILLE — Bill Sullivan doesn’t know what flavor ice cream Mitt Romney fancies, but the owner of Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl plans to suggest Whitehouse — vanilla with cherries.
Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, will be at Tom’s at 3:30 p.m. today for a campaign rally. The event is free and open to the public, and doors will open at 2:30, representatives from the Romney campaign said.
Sullivan is expecting about 70 people inside Tom’s for the rally and at least 1,000 more standing outside, he said.
For people who can’t make it into the building, the Romney campaign is paying for ice cream to be served to them outdoors, he said.

The national press will find some way to turn this into Another Shocking Scandal: Why is “Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl” owned by a guy named Bill? And isn’t it true that this “free” ice cream is being paid for with money Romney stole from laid-off steel workers? Surely that stuff’s included in the 290-page MMFA super-PAC oppo-research dossier, right?

Speaking of shocking scandals, have Democrats started shreiking “racism” about this Romney ad yet?

Another Shocking Scandal: “Disturbing Report” of massive Republican crowds at Romney-Ryan rallies. A quick survey of the headlines at Memeorandum reveals the hot story is Wolf Blitzer’s smackdown of Debbie Wasserman Schultz:

Allahpundit:

Job one for Democrats: Lie your ass off in the interest of convincing seniors that Romney and Ryan are prepared to reduce Medicare benefits for everyone, regardless of age, instead of exempting people aged 55 and over as Ryan has promised. When that doesn’t work . . . shift to plan B by arguing that Romney and Ryan are prepared to reduce Medicare for the grandmas of the future, which could totally be avoided if we just keep reelecting Democrats and have the magical unicorn in Obama’s backyard fart out a few new trillion-dollar bills to keep the program solvent.

Now, off to Ohio. Please hit the tip jar!

 




 


Iowa Flashback: August 2011

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Intersection in a cornfield near Roland, Iowa

Paul Ryan is campaigning — and getting heckled — today in Iowa and I don’t know how many readers realize that today is the one-year anniversary of the Iowa GOP Straw Poll at Ames, which I covered under the headline, “Fear and Loathing at the Hilton Coliseum.”

In case you’ve forgotten, Michelle Bachmann won the straw poll, Ron Paul was second, Tim Pawlenty was a weak third, Rick Santorum was a surprising fourth and Herman Cain finished a disappointing fifth. Rick Perry was sixth at Ames; his write-in total actually exceeded Mitt Romney’s straw-poll vote. What reminded me of this anniversary was an e-mail I got today from an Iowa reader:

I’ve been following your articles since you interviewed me at Herman Cain’s stop at Denison, IA, in 2011. Keep up the good work.

Denison? Hmmm. That sounded familiar. So I quickly searched the archives and confirmed my memory — yes, that was the stop on Herman Cain’s bus tour with the overflow crowd at Crunk’s Cafe. And yes, I’d interviewed the lady afterwards:

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Lois Vanderbur drove 30 miles from her home in Mapleton to attend Herman Cain’s event Monday in Denison. When the event was over, she went to eat at a nearby McDonald’s, where I overheard her tell her friend Rose Wolden: “Obama was an hour late for his speech and promised to raise taxes, and then the Dow fell 550 points.”
Mrs. Vanderbur, 68, is a very well-informed grandmother. When I asked her about the stock market tumble, she whipped out her iPhone, called up the latest numbers and told me that the Dow Jones Industrial Average had, in fact, closed at 10,809.85 for a one-day loss of 634.67 points. Forget all that stereotypical talk about Iowans being a bunch of ignorant hicks from flyover country. Their state’s most famous product is still corn — and the cornfields here are better measured by the square mile than by the acre — but the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses have made politics at least the state’s second-most important export, and few Americans are more civic-minded than a politically active Iowan.
Mrs. Vanderbur and Mrs. Wolden were among more than 60 area residents who crowded into Cronk’s Café in downtown Denison for Cain’s mid-afternoon event, the second stop on his statewide “Common Sense Solutions” bus tour. . . .

You can read the whole thing, if you’d care to refresh your memory of where the campaign stood a year ago, although it seems like a million years ago now, doesn’t it? Continue reading Iowa Flashback: August 2011 →

Life Sucks: Supreme Court Upholds ObamaCare and … It’s Moving Day

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Also, Rick Locke has Stage 3 lung cancer, as if we didn’t have enough wretched bummers to go around today, huh? Headlines from Memeorandum:

Supreme Court upholds health care law
— MSNBC

Health care ruling:
Individual mandate upheld
by Supreme Court
— Politico

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand
— New York Times

No joy in Mudville. The Chief Justice hath spoken. And my wife is frantic with stress, because we’re going today to sign the papers on a rental house that’s smaller than the house we’re moving out of, in order to put ourselves somewhere that vicious perjuring bastard Brett Kimberlin can’t find us. Blogging About Hyper-Litigious Convicted Lying Terrorists™ was never part of my career plan, of course, but stuff happens, eh? We’ve got to pay to get the electric and cable turned on in the new (too small) place, and will probably have to rent storage for vast amounts of our stuff, so once more I am compelled to invoke the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIPS JAR!

Life sucks. Thanks, Brett Kimberlin. Thanks, Chief Justice Roberts.

 

 


The Kimberlin Files: Ali Akbar, the Fight for Liberty and … a Disturbing Silence

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“If Rauhauser and Kimberlin aren’t under investigation by the FBI yet, why not?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 4, 2011

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
During the Right Online conference, National Bloggers Club president Ali Akbar was interviewed by Christina Corbin of Fox News:

“What they’re clearly trying to do is dampen down free speech, but it goes beyond that — it’s putting people’s physical safety in jeopardy,” said Ali Akbar, who heads a group called the National Bloggers Club made up of conservative online writers.
Akbar told FoxNews.com that he believes he is a target after he claims his mother’s home address in Texas was posted on various Internet sites to “incite someone crazy on the fringe left to do something absolutely awful to one of us for what we’re talking about.”

(Via Memeorandum.) There is a limit to what can be accomplished by defensive measures to protect against such dangerous intimidation tactics. We have seen in the cases of Seth Allen, Mike Stack, Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Aaron Walker that courts and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly failed to take appropriate action against the thugs who seek to stifle First Amendment freedoms. Indeed, in the May 29 Maryland hearing that exemplified the bizarre success of Brett Kimberlin’s abusive “lawfare” tactics, Aaron Walker was arrested — ! — on the basis of dishonest claims made by Kimberlin who, among other things, is a convicted perjurer.

Mike Stack and Patterico were both SWATted nearly a year ago, and yet no arrests have been made in those cases. Patterico demonstrates that he was being harassed on Twitter in September 2011 by Neal Rauhauser’s associates who made specific references to SWATting before Patterico had ever made public mention of having been SWATted.

The FBI knows all about this, and yet they refuse to act.

Patterico has clearly identified those whom he suspects of complicity. Has the FBI inquired with Twitter to find out who was behind the “LulzShack” handle in August 2011? Or who was behind the “Stormpedo” Twitter handle in September 2011?

We are at the point of the story where, if this was a TV crime drama, the detectives would have the suspects locked in a room, confronting them with the evidence and interrogating them for 14 consecutive hours until they cracked.

Is the FBI incompetent? Or — I hesitate to suggest this — has the Justice Department become so corrupted that even the FBI’s hard-won reputation for integrity has been compromised?

This is why Neal Rauhauser’s repeated boastings about his contacts in the FBI disturb me. We know that Rauhauser is a liar and a braggart, but what if he’s actually telling the truth about his cozy relationship with law enforcement? What if the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have actually bought into Rauhauser’s deceptions?

Perish the thought. I have spoken to at least three people who say they have talked to the FBI about what is, supposedly, an ongoing investigation of these matters. These people tell me to be patient, and assure me that the FBI is doing their best. But if they’re doing their best, how to explain the lack of action?  Continue reading The Kimberlin Files: Ali Akbar, the Fight for Liberty and … a Disturbing Silence →