The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Why Did Neal Rauhauser Lie?

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 33 Comments

Because the previous post strung out to 1,500 words — highlighting Neal Rauhauser’s role in the harassment of Mike Stack — I neglected to ask an important question about Rauhauser’s June 2, 2011, “Stranded Wind” post at Daily Kos: Why did Neal tell this lie?

Congressman Anthony Weiner was stalked, set up, smeared, and this was coordinated to protect Clarence Thomas from scrutiny.

You see that this is 18 words of pure, deliberate falsehood.

Neal Rauhauser tells lies like that habitually and routinely. This is just one randomly selected lie among thousands, but look at it again:

Congressman Anthony Weiner was stalked, set up, smeared, and this was coordinated to protect Clarence Thomas from scrutiny.

What could possibly be Rauhauser’s motive for telling that lie? I mean, we now know conclusively that Weiner was never “stalked,” “set up,” and “smeared,” right? Anthony Weiner was guilty, guilty, guilty.

Neal Rauhauser knew this, too. He is not stupid. He knew very well that Weiner sent the Tweets that Weiner was accused of sending.

There was no “set up.” There was no “smear.”

Neal just lied and made that up, but look at the second half of his lie:

. . . this was coordinated to protect Clarence Thomas from scrutiny.

“Coordinated”? By whom did Rauhauser say this was “coordinated“?

We see a steady flow of similar crimes – illegal taping, attempts to tap a Senator’s phone, now intrusion into a Congressman’s social media profiles, and the one thing in common? Andrew Breitbart, who is operating a continuing criminal enterprise as defined by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act aka RICO.
And now this gang, this conservative media mafia, has done a hit on a U.S. Congressman, and it’s one carefully timed to protect corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from scrutiny, and the timing of the delivery was flawless.

This is obviously false, and obviously Neal Rauhauser knew it was false. The “timing” of when Anthony Weiner tweeted that photo of his bulging crotch was entirely up to Anthony Weiner, and so Neal Rauhauser’s deliberate falsehood is preposterous. Yet there it is:

“Andrew Breitbart . . . is operating a continuing criminal
enterprise . . . [which] has done a hit on a U.S. Congressman
. . . carefully timed to protect corrupt Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas from scrutiny.”

This is a lie, and the question is: Why?

No one has ever backed Neal Rauhauser into a corner and demanded that he answer for all the lies he told about WeinerGate, I have focused here on exactly one of those lies, for a reason: It was in that June 2, 2011, post that Rauhauser threatened Mike Stack.

Three weeks later, Mike Stack was SWATted.

A week after that, Patrick “Patterico” Frey was SWATted.

What do Mike Stack and Patrick Frey have in common?

Neal Rauhauser hates their guts.

Somebody needs to ask Neal Rauhauser a few questions.

 

Category: The Kimberlin Files

It’s Halloween: Does the FBI Know Where Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser Is?

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 60 Comments

“Congressman Anthony Weiner was stalked, set up, smeared, and this was coordinated to protect Clarence Thomas from scrutiny.”
— Neal Rauhauser (“Stranded Wind”), Daily Kos, June 2, 2011

“We’re getting in position to drive part of the narrative for the Occupiers. . . .
“3. Next steps with this will include some of the following
“a. other Velvet Revolution activities — American Crossroads seems most likely to draw their eye . . .
“Keep in mind I work with the guy who triggered the investigation into Clarence Thomas over the Citizens United payoff . . .”
— Neal Rauhauser, e-mail to Occupy Boston organizers, Sept. 30, 2011

“Kimberlin has been targeting Patterico since October 2010, and it was evidently Rauhauser’s anti-Patterico blogging that brought him into Kimberlin’s orbit so that, by October 2011, Rauhauser seemed to be describing Kimberlin as his client. . . .
“Another coincidence: What do ‘SWATting’ victims Patterico and Mike Stack have in common, other than the fact that, as Patterico himself notes, Rauhauser hates their guts?
“Is Rauhauser being paid by Brett Kimberlin — with proceeds from tax-exempt non-profits — to pursue these vendettas?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 4, 2012

Anyone familiar with my coverage of The Kimberlin Files knows that it was former Democrat campaign consultant Neal Rauhauser’s involvement with Brett Kimberlin that first drew my attention to this story in May 2012. And anyone familiar with the federal RICO lawsuit Kimberlin v. Universe, et al., knows that The World’s Worst Pro Se Litigant’s central claim is that he was the target of a racketeering conspiracy (!) involving everybody from Michelle Malkin to Glenn Beck to Simon & Schuster (!) to falsely accuse him of complicity in the “SWATting” hoaxes against Patrick Frey and others.

Yet there are some curious omissions from Kimberlin’s lawsuit. The perjuring bomber never mentions his role in VelvetRevolution.us, the 501(c)4 activist group he co-founded which, along with his 501(c)3 Justice Through Music Project, shares the Bethesda, Maryland, address where Kimberlin lives in his mother’s basement. Furthermore, Kimberlin’s lawsuits do not mention either Neal Rauhauser or the June 2011 SWATting of Mike Stack. Why is this?

My fellow RICO defendant Patrick Frey, June 3, 2012:

Many people have asked: if all this is about Brett Kimberlin, where does Mike Stack fit in? Why was he swatted? . . .
Rauhauser had several sites with a countdown clock to February 6, including one called “Kookpocalyse” and other sites linked to his name. . . .
The Kookpocalypse site included a video of a simulated beheading . . .
There were train maps with Aaron Walker’s hometown of Manassas, Virginia and Seth Allen’s hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Given Rauhauser’s past comments (as “Iowa Boy”) talking about the need for Republicans to be killed for the greater good, together with the simulated beheading video and the countdown clock, Rauhauser’s ominous web site created valid cause for concern. . . .
Rauhauser had a deep animus towards Stack. And he claimed that Stack was “harassing” certain people, including Brett Kimberlin. Moreover, he connected that to Weinergate. Rauhauser states in the document that one of the reasons Stack allegedly harassed Kimberlin and himself was that “Rauhauser wrote extensively about Stack, Frey, Bloom, and their fabrications regarding former Congressman Anthony Weiner.”
So you can see that from reading Rauhauser’s paranoid rant that, in Neal Rauhauser’s mind, there is a connection between me and Mike Stack (the two swatting victims from 2011), our alleged fabrications about Anthony Weiner, and our alleged harassment of Brett Kimberlin.
Remember that Rauhauser is Kimberlin’s associate and was present at the recent hearing where Aaron Walker was arrested.

Go read the whole thing. Who could forget Neal Rauhauser’s February 2012 “Kookpocalypse” threat which, in the end, proved to be the publication of Rauhauser’s notorious conspiracy theory, “Andrew Breitbart’s ISR Cell?” That document was part of a package of information Rauhauser sent to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. In it, Rauhauser claimed that he, Kimberlin and others were the targets of a criminal conspiracy involving Mike Stack, Seth Allen, Aaron Walker, Sean Tompkins, Patrick Frey, Patrick Read, Mandy Nagy, Thomas Ryan, Aaron Barr and others.

Keep in mind, now, that this “Kookpocalypse” scare was Feb. 6, 2012, more than three months before I got onto the Kimberlin story.

Rauhauser sent to the FBI, and published online, a completely baseless series of criminal accusations against his enemies list, claiming a “conspiracy” involving at least 10 people, some of whom did not even know each other. Yet now we have Kimberlin suing people — claiming conspiracy as well as defamation — while ignoring the deliberate defamation published by his associate Rauhauser?

But again, Patterico’s question: “Many people have asked: if all this is about Brett Kimberlin, where does Mike Stack fit in? Why was he swatted?” This is crucial to understanding why Kimberlin v. Universe, et al., says nothing about Rauhauser or Velvet Revolution. To discuss either would be to raise the question of why, in June 2011, Rauhauser was using his Daily Kos “Stranded Wind” account to promote Kimberlin’s Velvet Revolution’s petition to impeach Clarence Thomas?

It would also raise the question of why, in September 2011, Rauhauser was representing himself as an agent of Velvet Revolution in e-mails to organizers of Occupy Boston?

In other words, from mid-2011 onward, Rauhauser appears to have been acting on behalf of Kimberlin and Velvet Revolution, and so if Rauhauser were suspected in the SWATtings of Stack and Patterico, then the question of Kimberlin’s culpability for Rauhauser’s actions would constitute an entirely reasonable suspicion. But guess what else Rauhauser alleged in June 2011?

These are the particulars of the latest event, but look at the big picture. We see a steady flow of similar crimes – illegal taping, attempts to tap a Senator’s phone, now intrusion into a Congressman’s social media profiles, and the one thing in common? Andrew Breitbart, who is operating a continuing criminal enterprise as defined by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act aka RICO.

Oh, Breitbart was “operating a continuing criminal enterprise” under RICO, the same thing Brett Kimberlin alleges in his lawsuit? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser are promoting these very similar conspiracy theories? And do you think that it’s also just a coincidence, that in that same Daily Kos diary, Rauhauser invoked “Anonymous” to threaten Mike Stack?

So it was a short process from getting contacted by this anonymous person with a hushmail account until I had this guy’s full name, his home address, his date of birth, and a collection of phone numbers. I wrapped it nice and neat and forwarded it to the FBI. . . .
And one final thing … the person or persons behind the hushmail account that knew so much about Mike Stack? They’ve asked me to include a few words and an image in this diary.

We are Anonymous.We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us. . . .

Plain and simple, people, I write things up in an orderly fashion, I address them to someone with an @ic.fbi.gov address, and I hit send.

Isn’t that weird? On June 2, 2011, Neal Rauhauser basically “doxed” Mike Stack at Daily Kos and quoted the Anonymous creed.

Three weeks later, Stack got SWATted.

The whole time, Neal Rauhauser was boasting about the frequency of his contacts with the FBI. And it’s probably just a coincidence that the FBI has been unable to solve the SWATtings of Stack, or Patterico, or Aaron Walker or Erick Erickson, or some other people who have been SWATted, but haven’t gone public about it.

Some people have told me they suspect Neal Rauhauser is being “protected” by the FBI. They have actually named two FBI agents they suspect are involved in protecting Rauhauser. Frankly, these suspicions strike me as somewhat paranoid, but if you were someone who (a) had been endlessly harassed by Neal Rauhauser and also (b) had been SWATted, wouldn’t it make you paranoid if (c) FBI agents professed themselves hopelessly incompetent to solve these SWATtings even while (d) Rauhauser was bragging about his FBI contacts?

So it’s Halloween, and Neal Rauhauser is still at large.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 





 

 

Category: Crime, The Kimberlin Files

The Old ‘Ongoing Investigation’ Trick Is Being Used to Hide Benghazi Truth

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 39 Comments

The Lonely Conservative:

The cover up continues. The State Department and the DOJ are blocking Congress from having access to survivors of the Benghazi attack. They blame it on the ongoing investigation.

This is a very familiar method of truth-suppression in D.C.: “I can’t comment because of the ongoing investigation.” Understand that when the federal government is investigating the federal government, denying information to Congress is a de facto cover-up.

Meanwhile, Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times reports:

Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military’s elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration’s original story about the Benghazi tragedy. . . .
[S]ources directly familiar with the attack tell The Washington Times that a unit of eight special operators — mostly Delta Force and Green Beret members — were in Tripoli the night of the attack, on a counterterrorism mission that involved capturing weapons and wanted terrorists from the streets and helping train Libyan forces.
When word of the Benghazi attack surfaced, two members of that military unit volunteered to be dispatched along with five private security contractors on a hastily arranged flight from Tripoli to rescue Americans in danger, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because the special operations forces’ existence inside Libya was secret.
The two special operations forces arrived in time to engage in the final, ferocious firefight between the terrorists and Americans holed up in the CIA annex near the ill-fated diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the sources added.
The two special operators were awarded medals for valor for helping repel a complex attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens, another American diplomat and two former Navy SEALs, but spared many more potential casualties.

So here we have Green Berets getting medals for their bravery in a battle that the administration refuses to tell Congress anything about, because “ongoing investigation.” Next we’ll be told that Obama can’t say anything about Benghazi, because “national security.”

Remember the administration repeatedly claimed that Benghazi was a “spontaneous demonstration” inspired by a YouTube video.

They’re Democrats. Their first instinct is always to lie.

Now? “Phony scandal!” And whatever happened to Nakoula?

 

Category: Barack Obama, Libya, Military

IRS Leaker ID’d; Confidential Information Given to 2007 Harvard Graduate UPDATE: Gay ‘Diversity’ Program

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 48 Comments

Eliana Johnson of National Review reports that congressional investigators have identified the Internal Revenue Service employee who leaked confidential information about donors to the National Organization for Marriage. Federal rules forbid the leaker’s name being made public, but we know to whom the information was leaked:

[A]n IRS agent working in the Exempt Organizations Division — the same division that, until May, was under the direction of Lois Lerner, who retired under duress last month — leaked NOM’s Schedule B to Matthew Meisel, a former employee of Bain & Company, the management consultancy where former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney worked in the 1970s and 1980s and where he served as interim CEO in the early 1990s. Between his stints there, Romney founded the private-equity firm Bain Capital in 1984. After he obtained NOM’s donor list from the IRS employee, the committee says, Meisel then turned it over to the Human Rights Campaign. Neither Meisel nor the Human Rights Campaign returned calls seeking comment. . . .
The emergence of Meisel, a 2007 graduate of Harvard University, and his connection to Romney’s firm may shed light on the motivation behind the leak, which was used to hammer Romney for supporting California’s Proposition 8.
[NOM chairman John Eastman] wants the Department of Justice to prosecute both the unnamed IRS leaker and Meisel, the recipient of the leaked documents. “This should be a relatively simple matter,” he says.

It also should be “a relatively simple matter” for a congressional committee to subpoena Meisel and officials of the Human Rights Campaign to testify at a hearing, and to subpoena Lerner for her testimony as well. Let them all plead the Fifth, if they want, but hold the hearing and let the American public see what has happened here.

UPDATE: How did this happen? In a word, “diversity.” From a December 2008 article in the Harvard Crimson:

On a Monday night in September, about two dozen Harvard students gathered at the Harvard Square hot spot Red Line, to be wined and dined by recruiters from the consulting firms Bain and Co. and the Bridgespan Group. . . .
This event hosted by Bain and Bridgespan was just one in a series of efforts from a variety of firms across the country to target LGBT students interested in a future in finance. . . .
“Questions run the gamut, everything from what are your hours like to can I bring my boyfriend out with colleagues? About significant others and everything in between,” says Matthew S. Meisel ’07, an associate consultant from Bain and Co. . . .
About Bain and Co.’s larger diversity goals, Meisel says, “Bain is really looking for a diverse set of people and diversity means a lot of things of course, but as our clients change and as our clients’ needs change, one of the important things is that our team members come from diverse backgrounds.”

Score another win for Cultural Marxism.

UPDATE II: More on gay “diversity” from the Yale Herald, Nov. 5, 2010:

Matthew Meisel, a senior associate consultant at Bain who graduated from Harvard in 2007 and is a member of BGLAD [Bain Gay and Lesbian Association for Diversity], highlighted diversity in the workplace as an asset to the collaborative nature of consulting.
“If you get six identical people in a room together and ask them to solve a really difficult problem, you’re not going to get a very good answer,” he said. “But if you have people from diverse academic and personal backgrounds, you get more creative answers.” . . .
[C]andidates who want more information about specific companies should look to metrics such as the Corporate Equality Index published annually by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT civil rights organization in the U.S. According to Matthew Meisel, Bain was the first major consulting firm to receive a perfect score of 100 and has received that score for five years running.

So, it seems, Matthew Meisel was a sort of poster boy/P.R. spokesman for this corporate “diversity” program at Bain.

 

Category: Corruption, Crime, Gays, Taxes

A Petty Criminal

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 20 Comments

Bryan Sweatt of South Carolina:

Sweatt has a lengthy arrest record that dates back nearly a decade, according to state police records. Most of his charges were related to property crimes, such as burglary or forgery, although he was arrested once on aggravated assault charges.

How many times have I pointed out that those who perpetrate headline-making atrocities are often petty criminals who escalated?

6 people shot dead in SC domestic dispute

Some people never learn: Criminals are dangerous.

 

Category: Crime

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 10.31.13

Posted on | October 31, 2013 | 12 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Red Sox Nation Unites In Joy: “This Is Our City”

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2013 Baseball World Champions.

Sox Top Cards 6-1 As Lackey Dominates
Third title since 2004 caps worst-to-first season

France Rejects NSA Denials As “Implausible”
NSA Uproar Could Spark Changes Not Seen Since 1970s


“Contrite” White House Spurns Health Law’s Critics
Obama defends #AbominableCareAct in Boston speech



POLITICS
All Apologies: Biden, Sebelius Sorry For Obamacare Site Debacle

“The website has never crashed” – Sebelius

One month after launch, the system is still down.
Congressmen Rip HHS Secretary For Insurance Cancellations, Website Woes

Hawaii Senate Passes Gay Marriage Bill

Booker Plans Hands-On Approach As Senator

Murray, Crapo Pursue Budget Deal Again

Napolitano: University Of California To Spend $5 Million On Illegals’ Tuition

Romney Rejects Administration Effort To compare Obamacare, Masscare Rollouts

Justice, State Departments Blocking Access To Benghazi Survivors



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Drops In Asian Trade As Fed Stands Pat: NYMEX $96.57, Brent $109.56
Facebook Beats The Street; Shares Go On Roller-Coaster Ride
Fed Extends Stimulus As Growth Stumbles
ADP: US Companies Add Just 130K Jobs In October
Sony Slashes Full-Year Profit Forecast By 40%
McDonald’s Coffee Coming To Grocery Stores Next Year
Android KitKat Might Be Boon For Underpowered Devices
Google Mounts Product Recall For Glass Spy-Goggles
Ashton Kutcher Joins Lenovo As Product Engineer
Dell Denies Laptops Smell Like Cat Piss
Steam Reaches 65 Million Users



SPORTS
Allen Iverson Announces Retirement From Basketball

“I’ll be a Sixer ’til the day I die”

11-time All Star brought street ball to the NBA

Sixers Stun Heat Behind Carter-Williams’ Strong Debut

Big Papi Chosen As World Series MVP

Leafs Quench Flames 4-2

Failure To Launch: Bobcats Drop Season Opener To Rockets

Wings Edge Canucks 2-1

Anthony, Knicks Hold Off Bucks

Pens Beat Bruins 2-1

Nats’ Hiring Of Williams Signals That Rizzo, Not Players, Makes The Call



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Kid Rock’s Ex Nearly Unrecognizable After Haircut

Some no-talent ex-starlet

Full version of “Half Your Age”


As Robin Thicke Admits “Blurred Lines” Is Ripoff, Marvin Gaye’s Family Sues

Inside The Wild World Of Katy Perry

Kristin Cavallari Pregnant With Baby #2


Liberty Ross Speaks Out About Kristen Stewart’s Affair With Her Husband

Eddie Cibrian Ready To Call It Quits With LeAnn Rimes?

Aaron Taylor-Johnson Closes Deal To Play Quicksilver In “Avengers: Age Of Ultron”

CBS Eyes “How I Met Your Mother” Spinoff

Kerry Washington Pregnant With First Child

Oprah Responds To Jenny McCarthy: “I Don’t Have A Sh-t List”

Katy Perry’s PRISM Shines At #1 Atop Billboard 200



FOREIGNERS
Bank Of Japan Raises GDP Forecast, Inflation Goal Intact
OGX Bankruptcy: What Now For Batista’s Brazil Projects?
Syris Meets Deadline To Destroy Chemical Warfare Equipment
PRC Media Call For “United Front Against Terror” After Arrests
Young Boy Steals Show During Papal Speech
Putin Tops Forbes Most Powerful People List
Chicoms Demand Explanation Of Spying Accusations Regarding Aussie Embassies
Bodies Of 87 Migrants Found In Niger Desert
Two Years After Pushing US Out, Iraq Returns Seeking Arms, Training And Troops


BLOGS & STUFF
Dead Republican Party: The Difference Between Freedom And Liberty
The Looking Spoon: The Dictionary Of Liberalism
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Obama’s Personal Approval Rating Now Pear-Shaped
Aewl’s Abode: Let It Burn, Let It Burn
Michelle Malkin: The Thuggery Of Obamacare Czarina Kathleen Sebelius
Twitchy: Harry Reid Goes Concern Trolling
Your Full-Service Obamacare Site (h/t Chicks On The Right)
Chicks On The Right: Meghan McCain And Her Dad Have The Sads
American Power: White House Jackboots Threatening Insurance Execs Into Silence On Obamacare Criticism
American Thinker: The Obama Facade Cracks At Last
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Do It Yourself
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, October 30
Jammie Wearing Fools: Obama Announces Campaign Appearance for Lowlife Terry McAuliffe, Whose Lead Immediately Shrinks
JustOneMinute: Latest Obama Defense – Incompetence, Not Ignorance
Pat Dollard: Harry Reid Claims If Ted Cruz Is GOP’s 2016 Nominee, It’ll End The GOP
Protein Wisdom: Global Warming Gets Twice As Much Money As Border Security
Shot In The Dark: Narrative, Interrupted
The Jawa Report: Rand Paul – Cut Off Aid To Countries Who Persecute Christians
The Lonely Conservative: Sebelius Caught On Mic Whining “Don’t Do This To Me”
Megan McArdle: What Everyone Knew About Obamacare And Wouldn’t Say


Category: Live at Five

Bill Schmalfeldt Lies to @SilverbergDave: Failure and the Exact Opposite of Truth

Posted on | October 30, 2013 | 39 Comments

Bill Schmalfeldt ranting, 2011. (Image via Thomas Anderson at Vimeo)

“Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have principles. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have values. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have beliefs. Bill Schmalfeldt has enemies, and then nothing, a black and dank and empty void of sullenness.”
— Ken White, Popehat, Aug. 6

Arguing with a sociopath is generally a waste of time, and if you dedicated yourself to exposing every malicious lie Bill Schmalfeldt tells, you would never have time for anything else. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t call my attention to Schmalfeldt’s compulsive dishonesty and, while I know many readers have grown weary of hearing about his constant vile behavior, occasionally he does something so hatefully false that I simply cannot ignore it.

Bill Schmalfeldt has a habit of getting himself banned. He got banned from Daily Kos because of his grossly offensive anal rape “satire,” and has been repeatedly banned from the Examiner. In September, Schmalfeldt attempted to sneak back onto the Examiner as “Lester Klemper,” and when his unwelcome presence was (predictably) rejected, he unleashed obscenity-strewn threats of vengeance:

As I said at the time, this is typical Schmafeldt: The Dire Warning of Terrible Consequences — dreadful woe shall befall ye whom he hates.

What followed instead was Schmalfeldt’s complete humiliation at the Oct. 16 hearing on John Hoge’s peace order, and the subsequent rejection of Schmalfeldt’s appeal in the case. Keep in mind that, prior to the Oct. 16 hearing, Schmalfeldt had repeatedly boasted that he would prove Hoge guilty of perjury (!) with the predicted result that Hoge would leave the courtroom in handcuffs.

Threaten, threaten, threaten. Fail, fail, fail.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, however, Schmalfeldt had announced that he would begin writing for DigitalJournal.com. Schmalfeldt’s evident motive was that being published somewhere beside his own blog was necessary to Schmalfeldt’s defense of his harassment as “journalism.”

Of course, this was futile: Maryland’s harassment statute doesn’t have a Journalism Exemption. Schmalfeldt never got a chance to argue this in the Hoge v. Schmalfeldt hearing. Nevertheless, Schmalfeldt was a diligent DigitalJournal.com contributor, writing 56 articles between Sept. 25 and Oct. 27, generating 19,000 page-views. (That’s not bad, really, although by comparison this month I’ve published more than 150 posts with more than 300,000 page-views.)

It looked like Bill had found a home at DigitalJournal.com, but then he screwed it up because, as Ken White said, Bill has enemies.

Vengeance on his enemies is Schmalfeldt’s raison d’être and, after a month of being on his best behavior at DigitalJournal.com, he fell off the wagon and used an Oct. 25 article about the arrest of Alabama smear-blogger Roger Shuler to suggest that somehow Ali Akbar and I were responsible for Shuler’s arrest. That prompted Ali to write an e-mail to DigitalJournal.com publisher David Silverberg, and this false accusation was deleted from Schmalfeldt’s article.

But then in a follow-up article on Oct. 27, after name-checking me again, Schmalfeldt made a nameless reference to Lee Stranahan, which has been preserved by Aaron Walker:

Right wing bloggers don’t even need to have something actually happen to them to get the right wing blogosphere up in arms.
One writer for the extremist right wing blog Breitbart.com claimed a phony rape threat from a man with a progressive neurological disorder who lived 1,400 miles away from him. He sent the police to the man’s house, then cried to whoever would listen that he needed money, lots of money, so he could relocate his family. Right wing bloggers from coast to coast came to his aid, exhorting their readers to raise money for this man, who continued with his claim of death and rape threats from a man who would have to ask his wife to drive him the 1,400 miles to commit this imaginary crime the right wing blogger created in his mind.

I wrote to Silverberg asking that my name be removed from that article, and the above-quoted passage was also removed, so that all that remains of the Stranahan reference in the article is this:

In this climate where a right wing blogger can lie about a threat that never existed and raise thousands of dollars to “move” — and then not even change apartments — the left wing media establishment (such as it is) should be shamefaced over their lack of concern about an older man who is nursing his bruises behind bars while his wife remains barricaded in her house.

Ridiculous. You can read Aaron Worthing’s account and decide for yourself whether the rape threat was “phony,” and you can also read Stranahan’s own account, “Bill Schmalfeldt: The Stranger Who Harassed My Family.” Decide for yourself whether what Schmalfeldt was doing could be described as Ethical Journalism.

What was happening at DigitalJournal.com repeated a familiar pattern: Schmalfeldt was trying use his access to somebody else’s platform to pursue his personal enemies, the unprofessional behavior that got him banned from the Examiner in December 2011:

Bill,
I am yet again forced to discuss your column after you continued to (1) make your OBN articles personal, rather than talking about what such an organization is attempting to do and its potential implications, and (2) continued to reply in an antagonistic manner within the comments sections / Facebook.
Due to the continued disregard for projecting yourself in a professional manner, I am forced to suspend your access to our publishing platform again.
This was not how I hoped things would work out, but I’m no longer in a position to justify the amount of effort we as an organization have to put in to mitigate the complaints your work is constantly receiving. I wish you well on your blog.-
Best regards,
Kevin Staunton
Director, Northeast & Mid-Atlantic Regions

Bingo: “[T]he amount of effort we as an organization have to put in to mitigate the complaints your work is constantly receiving.”

That was in December 2011, when Schmalfeldt was pursuing his insane jihad against “Operation Burn Notice” (OBN), a Facebook group that opposed the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Months before I ever heard of the guy, Schmalfeldt’s habits were making him obnoxious to management at the Examiner. Now, in October 2013, he has repeated the pattern at DigitalJournal.com, recycling his smears against Stranahan, Akbar and me with no legitimate journalistic purpose. And today, apparently in a snit because his articles were being edited, Schmalfeldt announced his resignation by publishing an e-mail exchange with Dave Silverberg:

Dave:
First, let me express my gratitude for taking me back, I appreciate it very much and have tried very hard to abide by your rules. I have no problem with you or the site, and I will always have a soft place in my heart for you guys.
It is clear that I can’t turn from side to side without being attacked by the trolls who have decided that I have to be denied from doing any writing anywhere for anybody. Nor am I particularly agreeable to having to defend myself to my editor whenever one of these trolls raises a stink with you. This is how they are trying to get me fired. I choose not to grant them that trophy.
So, with great regret, and to save you and your publication any further difficulty with these criminals (not hyperbole), I offer you my resignation. If you choose to accept it, please advise.
And again, I am an appreciative and humble servant.
Thanks again for the opportunity.
Bill Schmalfeldt

Hi Bill,
We respectfully accept your resignation, and we sympathize with your situation. They are relentless, those people following you around online.
Thanks for your time on the site, and we hope you still check out the news content and vote and comment, as you like.
Note your Digital Journalist status has been removed.
Wishing you the best,
David

This is such a steaming heap of nonsense, I scarcely know where to begin debunking it. Schmalfeldt was not being “attacked by the trolls.” Rather, he was using his DigitalJournal.com access to make defamatory accusations against three innocent people who just happen, coincidentally, to be targets of Brett Kimberlin’s wrath.

Bill’s version of events is the exact opposite of truth: He was not being attacked, he was attacking. He is not a victim, but a victimizer.

Contrary to his claim that “trolls” want to prevent Schmalfeldt “from doing any writing anywhere for anybody,” nobody paid any attention to his DigitalJournal.com writing until there were specific complaints made by specific people about two specific articles.

As far as anyone “trying to get [Schmalfeldt] fired,” that description fits exactly one person: Bill Schmalfeldt, whose repetition of his previously demonstrated bad habits was the sole cause of the problem.

However, notice — as did Aaron Walker — how in attacking Lee Stranahan, Schmalfeldt referred to himself in the third person as “a man with a progressive neurological disorder.” Were DigitalJournal.com readers informed at any time that the author of that article was the same person who made the “phony rape threat” against Stranahan?

Because . . . ETHICS!

So, having tried unsuccessfully to use DigitalJournal.com as a platform for pursuing his own vindictive obsessions, now Schmalfeldt dishonestly claims victimhood as an excuse for his latest failure.

And isn’t crazy “a progressive neurological disorder”?

 

Category: Bill Schmalfeldt

Elizabeth Plank (@feministabulous) Proves She Is a Special Kind of Stupid™

Posted on | October 30, 2013 | 64 Comments

It was not my plan to write about Elizabeth Plank today because, until about 2 p.m., I’d never even heard of this particular idiot, but then a commenter left this comment on an earlier post:

Someone’s still buttmad over the possibility of a woman possibly avoiding rape and insisting that constant and inescapable victimhood is empowering. Because, feminism.
Oh. It’s Liz Plank. So that’s why it’s cray cray.

Well, who is this cray-cray person?

Elizabeth Plank
Viral Content & Social Justice Editor at PolicyMic. Masters degree from the London School of Economics. Behavioral science consultant by training and feminist crusader by passion.

Uh, “Social Justice Editor”? Social justice is a mirage, as Friedrich Hayek observed, and we might therefore assume that Liz Plank‘s job is to advocate for unworkable schemes of utopian impossibility.

Nice work, if you can get it.

Liz Plank is “buttmad” about something that was published 12 days ago by Emily Yoffe at Slate, pointing out the role that alcohol plays in the date-rape phenomenon plaguing colleges and universities. Yoffe said that, for sexually predatory men, “the rise of female binge drinking has made campuses a prey-rich environment.”

This would seem to be merely a common-sense observation, which Yoffe elaborates by reference to research on the phenomenon, but feminists went nuts, screeching that Yoffe was engaged in misogynistic victim-blaming and slut-shaming and enabling “rape culture.”

Just when you thought the resulting screech-fest had played itself out — see my two cents, “The Drunk Sluts Rights Movement” —  Plank responds by complaining that telling women not to get drunk “would be sensible advice if it didn’t reinforce the very structures that make sexual assault not only possible, but probable.”

You see that word “structures”? That’s jargon.

It’s a sort of code, an intellectual signifier, a way of saying, “Hey, I paid attention in my undergrad Critical Theory seminar.”

Jargon is a method of avoiding plain truth, and the minute people start talking that way, I figure them to be pretentious idiots who arrogantly assume they can baffle us with fancy bullshit.

Liz Plank reminds me of a certain TV personality in A Hard Day’s Night, about whom George Harrison says: “She’s a drag. A well known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things.”

 

Category: Feminism, Sex
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