The Other McCain

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

Lee Stranahan: The Pigford II Settlement Is ‘The Atlas Shrugged Of Fraud’

Posted on | October 7, 2013 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

I don’t know if I’d go comparing Atlas Shrugged to Pigford, myself. Rand was far more restrained and delicate when it came to the sex scenes, in contrast to the ~50 trillion shades of green Obama has whipped up these last years.

More at Lee Stranahan’s site:
You just claim to farm, fill out some forms, and pocket some loot. Recalls the old Steven Wright gag:

I’ve been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it.

Only this joke isn’t funny. What will be interesting, going into the election next year, is how many donations are tied to addresses in the settlement list. We should fall short of wondering if the Democrats are using bogus settlements to fund parties. Of a political sort. The presence of questionable settlements and political parties are just dots. Far be it from me to connect them. That would best be done through investigative means.

Category: Corruption, Democrats

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.07.13

Posted on | October 7, 2013 | 13 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Libya Seeks Answers After US Raid Snatches Al-Qaeda Suspect

John “F” Kerry speaks to the media in Bali

Suspect was involved in embassy bombings


Debt Fight To Escalate Shutdown Showdown
Boehner attaches strings to debt limit


UN Says Destruction Of Syrian Chemical Weapons Has Begun
Work being done by Organization For The Prohibition Of Chemical Weapons



POLITICS
Speaker Boehner Says Not Enough Votes In House To Pass “Clean” Debt Limit Bill

Speaker of the House John Boehner

Says country is on path to default unless Obama negotiates

California Wildfire Forces Evacuation Of Camp Pendleton

Police Investigating Soldier’s Death As Possible Hate Crime

Supreme Court Term Begins With Contentious Topics

De Blasio: Candidate Of The Rich?

Most Air Force Civilians Being Recalled To Work

Planned Parenthood PAC Spending $1 Million On Anti-Cuccinelli Ads

McAuliffe Backs Obama’s Coal Regulations



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Falls From Friday’s Rise As Concern Over US Budget Standoff Increases: NYMEX $103.27, Brent $109.06
World Bank Cuts PRC, East Asia Growth Forecasts
Apollo, Cooper Disagree Over $2.5 Billion Deal Value As Wrinkles Emerge
Twitter’s Valuation Seen As Exceeding $20 Billion After IPO
Airbus Reportedly Close To Landmark Order With Japan Airlines
Facebook Partnership To Build 394 Palo Alto Apartments
BlackBerry Accused Of Inflating Shares With False Claims
Is Samsung Overly Reliant On Smartphones?
Microsoft Says Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 Nearly Sold Out
T-Mobile Readies “Uncarrier 3.0” Shakeup
Glass Theft Auto: Hack Beams “Grand Theft Auto” GPS Straight To Your Eye
Valve Details Specs For Linux-Based Steam Machine Gaming PCs



SPORTS
Crawford, Uribe Take Teheran Deep As Dodgers Rout Braves 13-6

Carl Crawford rounds the bases as Julio Teheran looks on

Dodgers now up 2-1, could close out series Monday night in Atlanta


Pirates Beat Cardinals 5-3, Take 2-1 Lead In NLDS

Scherzer Pitches Tigers Past A’s In Opener


Big Papi Bashes Twice, Red Sox Lead Rays Two Games To None

Broncos Win Again As Romo Throws It All Away For Cowboys

Tom Brady’s TD Streak Halted By Bengals; Patriots Fall 13-6

Panthers Come Up Dry In The Desert, Lose To Cardinals 22-6

Rams End Skid, Crush Jaguars (Who Allegedly Don’t Need Tebow) 34-20

Canucks Top Flames In OT 5-4

Are The Nationals We Saw In The Second Half The Real Nationals?



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
200 Episodes In, Is “Gray’s Anatomy” Still McDreamy?

Sandra Oh, Sara Ramirez, and Ellen Pompeo shed their scrubs

Celebrating a milestone

Patsy Kensit’s Double Cancer Scare

Madonna: She Never Went Away

Halle Berry & Olivier Martinez: It’s A Boy!


Carson Daly Engaged To GF Siri Pinter

Katy Perry Attends BF John Mayer’s Concert

Selena Gomez Pays Huge Bucks To End Stinky Perfume Lawsuit

Topher Grace, Sarah Silverman  Headline New HBO Comedy Pilot “People Of New Jersey”

Quentin Tarantino’s Top Ten Of 2013



FOREIGNERS
Egypt: 50 Dead In Clashes Between Rival Demonstrations
Typhoon Batters Southeast China As Smog Chokes The North
Mexico Monster Truck Crash Kills Eight
Truck Bomb Kills 13 Children At School Playground In Iraq
Pressure Mounts On Weakened Taiwan President For Talks With Chicoms
Pakistan’s Military Chief Announces Retirement, Praises Democracy
Egypt Releases Two Canadians Arrested During August Protests
Divers Recover 83 More Bodies From Sunken Migrant Ship



BLOGS & STUFF
Aewl’s Abode: Shutdown – Weekend Edition
First Street Journal: The Obama Corollary To The Bush Doctrine?
Dead Republican Party: Is Obama Worse?
American Power: Annie Lennox Slams “Overtly Sexualized” Women’s Pop “Pornography”
American Thinker: What Democrats Really Care About
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Government Shutdown Day Four – Con Los Pobres De La Tierra
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Dick Move, Bro
Don Surber: Weekend Scoreboard, October 4-6
Jammie Wearing Fools: Clueless Fool Obama Claims He Has No Idea How Many People Signed Up For ObamaCare
JustOneMinute: Auto-Collapse
Pat Dollard: The Fuehrer Inflicts More Pain And Suffering On The American People, Shuts Down Amber Alert Website
Protein Wisdom: The Progressive Endgame And How To Prevent It
Shot In The Dark: The Useful Conversation About Guns
The Jawa Report: M/SGT Nicholas Oresko, Oldest Living Medal Of Honor Recipient, Has Passed
The Lonely Conservative: Obama Voter – “I Was Laughing At Boehner Until The Mail Came”
Megan McArdle: Racism Continues To Hurt Historically Black Colleges


Category: Live at Five

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

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 29 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other questions arise from there, you see.

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

Hoge schools Schmalfeldt on the established facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




 

 

Category: Bill Schmalfeldt, Crime, The Kimberlin Files

Rule 5 Sunday: Birthday Week

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 16 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

By some weird arrangement of fate and/or destiny, Stacy, Smitty and I all have birthdays that fall within four days of each other, and I mention this because I am utterly bereft of a musical intro for this week’s Rule 5 post. So I’ll just post this pic of Kate Upton and her cousins BJ and Justin, who play for the Team Formerly Known As The Boston Braves.

The Braves uniform has never looked better.

Insert the standard disclaimer here, and we’re off…

Yankee Phil would like to introduce you to Hilda, while the Laughing Conservative offers Rhian Sugden on a silver sofa and Valley of the Shadow enlists Mia Kirashner for the monthly tip-jar rattle. Randy’s Roundtable checks in with Sofia Zamolo, while Animal Magnetism changes it up with Rule 5 Obamacare Friday and Saturday Is A Grape Day. Reaganite Republican shows off Miss Norway 2013, 90 Miles From Tyranny offers Morning Mistress, Late Night Ladies, and Hot Pick of the Late Night, and since it’s hockey season, Fishersville Mike is seeing red. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot doubles up this week with Pretty Girls On A Friday: Shutdown Edition and Pretty Girls On A Saturday: Brazil Edition, while First Street Journal is all about the female swabbies.

American Power returns with Melissa Debling, Heidi Klum, Alyssa Miller, Candice Swanepoel, Lucy Pinder, and a Quick Rule 5 For Saturday.

Postaldog has Miley and more Miley, Pamela Anderson, and a review of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with gratuitous (but appreciated!) Eliza Dushku and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

EBL’s herd of Rule 5 heifers this week includes some “Glee”,  So Much To Think About, The Great Hungarian Underwear Protest, and a Goulash of Goodness.

Wine Women and Politics has Blonde Bombshells, Friday’s Fine Fillies, Friday Bonus, Thursday Bonus Babes, Hot Hot Hot, and Hump Day Hottie Day.

A View From The Beach posted about Sofia Vergara displaying her assets, If It Comes To Zombies We’re Screwed, Tea Time In Germany, Cute Archery Tricks With Geena Davis, Whole Lotta (Beth) Hart, What’s Under The Wookie’s Fur?, Skunks Invade New York, and Catwalk Princess Tweaks Topless Boob.

Soylent Siberia is host to Your Sunday Angel, Auburn Awesome Shaun Tia, Monday Motivationer Carly, The Most Alarming Alarmism, Overnighty Tasha, Tuesday Titillation Postponed By ObamaCare, Humpday Hawtness Ashlyn, Falconsword Fursday Patrycja, Fursday Evening Awesome, Friday Corset Crazins, T-GIF Friday DDoouble Trouble,  and Weekender Lydiya.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Meghan Markle, his vintage babe is Arlene Dahl, and Sex In Advertising this week is all about the beer. Dustbury returns from the Eurovision Song Contest with Zlata Ognevich and Emmelie de Forest, while at The Camp of the Saints it’s the Rule 5 News.

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week included Ela Pasion, Rafaella Modugno, Raven Athena, Melyssa Grace, Beckie Joon, Brandi Alexis Reed, Kali Hawk, Antoinette Kalaj, Topaz West, Nadine Ellis, and Edy Ganem. Also, Dangerous Curves and Sunday Beauty.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Submissions for next week’s Rule 5 post should be into the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox no later than Saturday, October 12.


Category: Rule 5

NY Times: Hey, Everybody Throw a Pity Party for This Stupid Dopehead Kid!

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 71 Comments

Maxwell Birnbaum: Dumber than an Alabama cop.

It’s so unfair that he got caught!

In March last year, a college freshman named Maxwell Birnbaum was riding in a van filled with friends from Austin, Tex., to a spring-break rental house in Gulf Shores, Ala. As they neared their destination, the police pulled the van over, citing a faulty taillight. When an officer asked if he could search the vehicle, the driver — a fraternity brother of Mr. Birnbaum’s who quickly regretted his decision — said yes.
Six Ecstasy pills were found in Mr. Birnbaum’s knapsack, and he was handcuffed and placed under arrest. Mr. Birnbaum later agreed to enter a multiyear, pretrial diversion program that has involved counseling and drug tests, as well as visits to Alabama every six months to update a judge on his progress. . . .
[T]he mug shot from his arrest is posted on a handful of for-profit Web sites . . . These companies routinely show up high in Google searches; a week ago, the top four results for “Maxwell Birnbaum” were mug-shot sites. . . .
[T]hese pictures can cause serious reputational damage, as Mr. Birnbaum learned in his sophomore year, when he applied to be an intern for a state representative in Austin. Mr. Birnbaum heard about the job through a friend.
“The assistant to this state rep called my friend back and said, ‘We’d like to hire him, but we Google every potential employee, and the first thing that came up when we searched for Maxwell was a mug shot for a drug arrest,’ ” Mr. Birnbaum said. “I know what I did was wrong, and I understand the punishment,” he continued. “But these Web sites are punishing me, and because I don’t have the money it would take to get my photo off them all, there is nothing I can do about it.”

Here’s your problem: You’re stupid, Maxwell.

Six measly tabs of Ecstasy?

Dude, back in the Seventies, I sold dope in felony-weight quantities and never once got busted. Because I was not stupid.

OK, I was a Democrat back then and that was intensely stupid, but at least I wasn’t stupid enough to get busted for dope.

It’s a Darwinian thing, Maxwell. You’re obviously inferior.

Despite my past as a long-haired adolescent dopehead, I am in favor of strict enforcement of Our Nation’s Laws Against Dangerous Drugs, because I don’t want people who are too stupid to out-smart a narc to be running around on the streets, clogging up traffic on the highways and, potentially, replicating their hopelessly stupid genes.

When the cops catch a stupid dopehead, I want that drug-addled idiot sentenced to the maximum extent of the law.

So, no, I don’t pity you for your “reputational damage,” Max, because if you’re dumber than a cop in Baldwin County, Alabama, you’re obviously so stupid we need to warned about your stupidity.

 

Category: Crime, Media Bias, New York Times

The #Shutdown, in Two Tweets

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 26 Comments

 

Category: Barack Obama

New Liberal Rule: When in Doubt, Invoke Distant History You Don’t Understand

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 147 Comments

U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, 1853

“A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.”
— Jefferson Davis

What’s up with this trend, huh? A week ago, James Fallows decided to drag John C. Calhoun into the current argument, and this week we have another liberal foray into bizarre counterfactual rhetoric:

The Washington Post’s Colby King took another stab Saturday at impugning and discrediting the Tea Party as a bunch of racists who are little more than an extension of the Confederacy. In a column titled “The rise of the New Confederacy,” King, a regular on Inside Washington, argued: “Today there is a New Confederacy, an insurgent political force that has captured the Republican Party and is taking up where the Old Confederacy left off in its efforts to bring down the federal government.”
The former deputy editorial page editor, whose column appears every Saturday, paid a back-handed compliment to House conservatives as he charged: “The New Confederacy, as churlish toward President Obama as the Old Confederacy was to Lincoln, has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy’s instigated Civil War.” . . .
He asserted “they respond, however, to the label ‘tea party.’ By thought, word and deed, they must be making Jefferson Davis proud today.”

What is this even supposed to mean? It seems to be just a cheap way of making an accusation Colbert King cannot justify (remember, there are five A’s in “RAAAAACIST!”) and, although no liberal today knows this, Jefferson Davis was an American hero long before he became the unfairly demonized President of the Confederacy.

A native of Kentucky — born, ironically, not far from the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln — he was raised in Mississippi and, at age 16, appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After graduation, Davis served as a young lieutenant at the frontier outpost Fort Crawford in present-day Wisconsin. There, Davis fell in love with Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of the fort’s commander, Col. Zachary Taylor. So in love was Davis, in fact, that he resigned from the army in order to marry Sarah (whose father wished to spare his daughter the difficult life of an Army officer’s wife), but tragedy soon struck: The newlyweds fell victim to an outbreak of malaria in 1835. Sarah died and her grief-stricken husband fell so ill that his survival was in doubt.

After recovering his health, Davis eventually entered politics, and campaigned for James K. Polk’s election as president in 1844. Davis was later elected to Congress, but when the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, the West Point graduate and veteran officer resigned his House seat, raised a volunteer regiment, and became colonel of the famed “Mississippi Rifles.” His bravery at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista won Davis national distinction.

His commanding general in Mexico was his former father-in-law, now General Zachary Taylor. Recalling how he had opposed his late daughter’s marriage to the young officer, Taylor told Davis, “My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was.”

Davis was appointed to the Senate in 1847, filling the seat of a senator who had died in office. He resigned that seat to run unsuccessfully for governor of Mississippi but, in 1853, was appointed Secretary of War by President Franklin Pierce. As Secretary, Davis supervised key work that helped prepare for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Davis was then re-elected to the Senate, where he served until resigning after Mississippi seceded from the Union.

In his farewell speech to the Senate, Davis recalled when he had defended the right of secession — for Massachusetts:

I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and when then the doctrine of coercion was rife and to be applied against her because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinion because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is based. I then said, if Massachusetts, following her through a stated line of conduct, chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but will say to her, God speed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other States.

Such was his firmness of principle and, although his critics then and since have found fault with Davis, no man ever doubted his honesty or his courage. The name of this heroic American — a soldier and statesman, who earned praise for his service in war and in peace — deserves more honor than to be slung around ignorantly as a political epithet more than a century after his death.

Ah, but this silliness brings back memories of the 1990s when, as a young newspaperman in Georgia, I occasionally went out to cover the historical re-enactments of Civil War battles. Bill Clinton was president then, and lots of Republicans had bumper stickers on their cars saying, “Don’t Blame Us, We Voted for Bush.” But at the re-enactor encampments, the stickers sometimes displayed a slightly different wording: “Don’t Blame Us, We Voted for Jefferson Davis.”

He was a Democrat, you know.

 

Category: History

@TedCruz Dribbles Dem. Party Proxy Candy Crowley In The Basketball Fashion

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 59 Comments

by Smitty

God bless you Ted Cruz. Worth savoring every moment:

via @rdbrewer4

Category: Health Care, Republicans
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