The Other McCain

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

Your Semi-Official Obama vs. Syria Armageddon Predictions Thread

Posted on | August 28, 2013 | 104 Comments

“Obama: Anatomy of a World Leader,” by Alex Gray (detail)

We’re supposed to start bombing the crap out of Damascus sometime soon, because President Obama has managed to make this imperative to U.S. credibility, and you know Dear Leader has gotten himself into a bad spot when Alan Colmes goes on Fox News and denounces the president in such strong terms that if any Republican had said it, they’d be the subject of a special alert from Media Matters.

 

Does anybody remember “The War of Monica’s Thong“?

In 1999, a few weeks after the Senate voted to acquit President Clinton for “high crimes and misdemeanors” — of which he was clearly guilty — Clinton suddenly decided that he’d had it up to here with Slobodan Milosevich. So NATO started bombing the crap out of the Serbs.

This was arguably the worst use of U.S. military force since the Spanish-American War, with “genocide” replacing “Remember the Maine” as the battle cry. Of course, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia had been raging for years, Milosevich’s brutality wasn’t exactly a recent development and we were, objectively, fighting in defense of a Muslim insurgency, with the Kosovo Liberation Army as al-Qaeda’s Balkan front. Because the Serbs had traditionally been Russia’s allies, the bombing campaign against Belgrade also had the effect of alienating Russia, which had been a potential ally in the post-Soviet era.

Our involvement was directly contrary to our own national interest, but because Clinton was eager to regain the prestige he had lost in the year-long Lewinsky ordeal, this “humanitarian” intervention was suddenly deemed necessary by the Commander-in-Chief.

Bad wars fought by bad presidents for bad reasons are not exactly a novelty in American history, and the long-term consequences of these spasms of politically motivated militarism are never good. While Clinton was bombing Serbs on behalf of Kosovar Muslims, their terrorist allies were already planning what became 9/11, but good luck getting Alan Colmes to admit that Clinton’s “Wag the Dog” distractions and other errors made America vulnerable to al-Qaeda.

However, Alan Colmes has had the wisdom to condemn the upcoming Syrian intervention in advance, and we should be grateful for that, rather than complaining about past errors.

The Assad regime is a murderous totalitarian nightmare, supported openly by Iran and supported tacitly by Russia and China. However, the Assad regime’s insurgent enemies are Islamic extremists with connections to al-Qaeda, and if these Syrian insurgents aren’t committing genocide, it’s only because they’re too busy trying to overthrow the current genocidal regime. Does any honest person doubt that Assad’s enemies would be as bad as (or worse than) Assad if they were to succeed in overthrowing him? Which is not to say anything in favor of a dictator using nerve gas against civilians, but at least now we know what happened to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, eh?

Still, enlisting the United States as al-Qaeda’s de facto air force is bad policy, and it will predictably have bad consequences.

The specific consequences may be impossible to predict, but we know for sure the consequences will be bad.

My hunch is that Iran will respond to U.S. attacks on Syria by launching its own attacks against Israel. Probably rocket attacks from Gaza, but maybe also a wave of suicide bombings. Israel will feel the need to retaliate, so I’ll go out on a limb here and bet that the IDF decides it’s finally time to destroy the Iranian nuclear threat.

Remember, our president is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which means World War III is always a distinct possibility.

Place your bets, gentlemen. My money’s on “Biblical Apocalypse.”

 

Category: Alan Colmes, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Military, Syria

Tara Carreon Doesn’t Know Why People Hate Her Censorious Douchebag Husband

Posted on | August 28, 2013 | 57 Comments

Allegedly the wife of Charles Carreon

When last we left the ongoing saga of censorious douchebag Charles Carreon, the “Popehat Reign of Terror” led to Charles being challenged to debate Ken White over Charles’ proposition that “Distributed Internet Reputational Attack” be recognized as grounds for a lawsuit, which inspired me to remark:

Thin-skinned narcissists who cannot admit error — whose response to criticism is always to demonize their critics, and who therefore automatically externalize blame for their own mistakes — are always doing this sort of thing to themselves in the Internet age.
Look: If you are ever in a situation where your stupidity makes you a target, the correct thing to do is . . . nothing.
Don’t react. Don’t try to defend yourself. Don’t lash out at your tormenters. Just ignore it until it is over. Learn your lesson, avoid repetition of the error, and be glad it wasn’t worse.
People who merely describe your stupidity — however mocking and sarcastic their descriptions — have done you no wrong.

Attempting to scapegoat others for your embarrassment, imagining that you have done nothing to deserve mockery or criticism, is never going to repair the damage you have done to yourself. God gives us the enemies we deserve, and we can learn lessons from such experiences, if we are willing to humbly accept chastisement.

Alas, Charles Carreon is prone to spasms of “pearl-clutching horror” — brilliant phrase, Ken — and so the comedic show goes on.

Last year, when Charles was threatening to sue everyone on the Internet into poverty, his wife Tara Carreon added to the entertainment:

“This is one of the little lying bitches working for Matt Inman,” Tara wrote about an apparently female commenter. In an exchange with another online commenter, Tara “jokingly” (her words) threatened that Carreon might subpoena him and search his hard drive. The bewildered commenter asked why he might possibly be subpoenaed. Tara replied:

For all of that illegal content on your hard drive. You’ll have to seek a protective order to keep your porn stash private. What’s your preference—het, gay, bi, BDSM?

The commenter responded, “Wait. Did you just vaguely threaten to try and out me to the general public using a subpoena and use that as a tool to embarrass and humiliate me? WOW. You, darling, have sunk lower than your husband.”

Notice the conspiratorial motif: Anyone on the Internet saying bad things about Charles Carreon must be “working for Matt Inman,” because it is impossible that this is just some random person who noticed that Charles Carreon is a censorious douchebag.

Notice also the Leninist “Who, Whom?” ethos: Threats that Tara Carreon would consider criminal if made against her or her censorious douchebag husband are perfectly acceptable when made against someone who does not admire her censorious douchebag husband.

OK, so in service of her “Stand By Your Man” act, Tara Carreon has started amassing “research” on all these evil people who call her husband a censorious douchebag, including yours truly:

There’s something really ironic about a guy who was a member of a white supremacist hate group, identified as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center, self-righteously hating on convicted domestic terrorist Brett Kimberlin. It’s as if they were brothers! Except that Brett has gone on to do good, and Robert Stacy McCain has gone on to do bad. Looks to me like Brett Kimberlin should be self-righteously hating on Robert Stacy McCain.
Boy, these guys do talk tough. They want you to know that you picked the wrong guy when you picked them for a fight! They going to squash you!
Mr. McCain has no shame. He just talks dirty, dirty, dirty, just like the rest of the rapeutationists. Their mothers should wash their mouths out with soap! Never has the world seen such an abundance of nasty talk.
And what about his Rodney King doctrine, that anyone targeted by the rapeutationists, better just lie down and not move, as their tormenters continue to kick the shit out of them? What a fascist, anti-democratic attitude.
So, that’s his advice. Here’s mine. Flee from the Internet as if it was the Devil himself, or some day you and your loved ones will be laying in a heap of bodies a mile high, all of you killed by the Internet. The nicer you are, the more likely you will be a target of the rapeutationists. This is a game where the bad guys point the finger at the good guys, and win.

Notice that Tara Carreon just became the umpteenth gazillionth person to call me a “white supremacist,” because everybody can rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center to provide them with truth and, also, a “hate map” directing their spree of violent terrorism.

Notice that Tara Carreon praises convicted felon Brett Kimberlin having “gone on to do good,” depending on your definition of good.

Notice that, three weeks after I last mentioned Charles Carreon on this site, Tara Carreon decides that I need to be profiled among the “tormenters” who “continue to kick the shit out of” poor helpless victim Charles Carreon. And why? Because he bears no responsibility whatsoever for the consequences of his ill-advised decision to send a demand for $20,000 to Matt Inman of TheOatmeal.com.

Tara Carreon ignores entirely — because mentioning it would invalidate the Victim Card she wants to play — that the only reason I ever noticed censorious douchebag Charles Carreon is because my name turned up in his list of “rapers” in the “Popehat Reign of Terror”:

Brett Kimberlin — obtained peace order prohibiting blogger Aaron Walker (Worthing) from writing about him (convicted domestic terrorist, bomber, perjurer; wounded a man so badly he later took his own life; laughed off the judgment; made vague and undocumented claims that he suffered threats from unidentified people; astoundingly vile; terrifyingly sociopathic; leads a contemptible life; crazy; quite evil; victimizer; malevolent; outrageous; despicable; remorseless and amoral psycho; crazy stalker) (Rapers: Aaron Walker, Patterico’s Pontifications; Eugene Volokh; Ali A. Akbar of the National Bloggers Club; Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP; Robert Stacy McCain)

Homey says, ‘I don’t think so.’

Homey don’t play that, see? You want to throw down, we’ll throw down, but when the fight starts with you sucker-punching me, you’d better by God be ready to bring it, because if I didn’t start the fight, I might feel obliged to finish it. And when you then derogate me for daring to notice your insults — as though I have no honor to defend — don’t whine when you find yourself losing the fight you started.

How does Tara Carreon dare to say I have “a fascist, anti-democratic attitude,” when it was her censorious douchebag husband who imagined he could sue the entire Internet into trembling silence?

Oh, I guess only lawyers have a license to terrorize and intimidate people on the Internet, and if any blogger dares say “boo” in reply, then the blogger must be an anti-democratic fascist.

But you just keep digging that hole, darling. By the time you dig your way to the flaming pit of Hell, I suppose you’ll still be blaming me.




 

Category: How This Here Internet Thingy Works

FAQ You, Seriously

Posted on | August 28, 2013 | 39 Comments

— Wombat-socho

1. Where did all these book posts start coming from?

We’ve had them here at The Other McCain for a while, as you can see by clicking on the “Books” tag at the bottom of this post. Stacy reads a lot, I read a lot, and Smitty likewise is a big fan of the printed word. Every so often we run across something we think you ought to read or might like to read, and a book post results.

2. How come you’re reviewing all this Buck Rogers stuff?

To paraphrase Gahan Wilson, I review what I read, and most of what I read these days is science fiction because to be honest, most mainstream fiction is depressing crap written to please the leftist mandarins of the New York publishing houses. Also, as a number of folks have pointed out, if you want to avoid socialist/multiculti/prognazi crap, your best option is to read science fiction, especially if it’s published by a certain publishing house. Also also, judging from all the comments, people seem to like it. Finally, in case you hadn’t noticed, science fiction, comic book and fantasy fans won the culture wars back in the 1980s. Suck it up, buttercup.

3. Why didn’t you include [insert book title and/or author here] in your post?

There may be a couple of reasons. I may not have read the book (or the author), and in that case I’m not going to write about it since I’d rather be silent than pop off with something that makes it obvious I have no idea what I’m talking about. I may not have included it because it’s not pertinent to the week’s topic. (All you people who complained that Starship Troopers wasn’t mentioned in “Space Opera”, I’m looking at you.) Finally, I may simply have forgotten, as was the case with A. Bertram Chandler’s most excellent John Grimes stories. Here, try To the Galactic Rim.

4. But you left out [award-winning book/author]!

Again, I may not have read it. It’s also possible that I read it and thought it was crap, and since I’m talking about books I liked that I think you might like, I’m going to leave it out. If you liked it, great. Blogs are free; go write your own book post on one.

5. Hi, I’m J. Random Scrivener, Esq., and I just wrote my first self-published SF novel. Would you review it?

Why not? Send me a copy and we’ll see if I like it. After reading these weekly book posts for the last month or so, you should have some idea of what my tastes run to, so if your debut novel is trying to do for Star Trek what Fifty Shades of Grey did for Twilight , then please spare both of us the embarrassment.

6. I can’t believe you included [book title] in that post. That book was awful!

Sorry you didn’t like it. Here, I have some more books you probably won’t like either.

7. I can’t believe you included [author] in that post. He’s an awful, chigger-hating, faggot-burning, gun-fondling, heterosexist Neanderthal!

Yes. That’s part of the reason I find him entertaining and follow him on Facebook. Are you sure you’re at the right blog?

8. I like what you’re doing with these book posts, and want to encourage you to continue your fine work.

Thank you, it’s good to hear that. You can provide encouragement (and help support my addictions to protein bars, SF novels and Chick-Fil-A) by buying stuff through the Amazon links scattered throughout these posts. You’re already going to buy the stuff, why not do it here and give me a taste in the process? I’d be much obliged.

And that’s about all the questions I thought needed answering. Now, we have some books that people mentioned in the comments to last week’s post. Mind you, I haven’t read these myself, but most of the readers here at The Other McCain are sensible folk with good taste, so the odds are good you’re not going to be stuck reading some horrendous piece of krep.

Lots of folks waxed enthusiastic about Peter F. Hamilton, especially his Night’s Dawn Trilogy and Confederation Saga. Here’s The Reality Dysfunction from the former and Pandora’s Star from the latter. Also mentioned in this connection was Alistair Reynolds’ Revelation Space.

Other series mentioned were David Feintuch’s Seafort Saga (starting with Midshipman’s Hope), David Drake’s RCN novels (With the Lightnings – free on the Kindle!), Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire). John Ringo’s Live Free or Die got a mention, and since who says A must say B, we also need to mention Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness. Also also, Star Trek: The Complete Original Series, Babylon 5: The Complete Seasons, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Complete Series


There’ll probably be another book post later in the week, when I figure out what I want to do it on.


Category: Blogging, Books

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.28.13

Posted on | August 28, 2013 | 16 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Military Intervention In Syria As Early As Tomorrow?

Biden: “Violators of international norms will be held accountable”

Russia, PRC warn against missile strikes

Forest Service Out Of Money To Fight Wildfires
Money being shifted from other accounts

Hagel: No Plans To Cut Off Military Aid To Egypt Yet
Says US will keep working for reconciliation



POLITICS
McCain Admits Immigration Bill Could Give Foreign Workers Edge Over Americans

Arizona Senators Flake & McCain listen to constituents at a town hall meeting

More border security at the price of jobs?

Congress Pushes Obama To Seek Its Approval, Input On War With Syria

Fort Hood Murderer Remains Silent In Penalty Phase

Hearing Begins For Annapolis Football Players Facing Court-martial For Rape

Senate Democrats Clash With Governor Brown Over State Prisons

News Flash From 2013: Neil Armstrong Is Dead

White House Economic Adviser Sperling Expected To Leave Soon

Proposal To Secede From Colorado Falls Short In Rural County

ObamaCare Fraud Prevention Program Plagues With Implementation Problems

Wisconsin Lawmaker Reintroduces Bill To Make English State’s Official Language

Hundreds Of Private Lobbyists Earning Public Pensions In 20 States

Florida Food Stamp Agency “Saves” $1.7 Million  – By Stopping Fraudulent Payments



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Hits Two-Year High On Warning To Syria: NYMEX $111.93, Brent $116.89
Syria Sinks Asia Stocks As Oil Spikes, Rupee Dives
Dollar Gains As Emerging Market Assets Slide
Patrick Dempsey Says Goodbye To The Coffee Chain He Rescued
Walmart Same-Sex Spouse Benefits Decision Puts Pressure On Holdouts
Feds Seek $6 Billion From JPMorgan To Settle Mortgage Claims
Facebook Discloses Government Requests For Data
Google Slashes Price of Unlocked Nexus 4 Phone To $199
Samsung To Launch Galaxy Tab 3 Kids
Why Does Everyone Hate Ballmer?
$199 Game Consoles Aren’t Worth The Money You’re Saving



SPORTS
Kate Upton Gets A Lesson From The King

A pair of the all-time greats

Supermodel’s golf lessons with Arnold Palmer light up Twitter


Stern Warns Nyets, Knicks Owners To Dial Back Rivalry


Signpost On The Road To Infamy: A-Rod Hits Homer #650

No Charges For Scottie Pippen After Brawl With Drunk Autograph Seeker

Victorino Delivers: 2 HR, 7 RBI In Red Sox 13-2 Rout Of Orioles

Clippers Won’t Re-Sign Lamar Odom – Crack Was The Last Straw

White Sox Rally Late, Beat Astros 4-3

Shields Dominates Twins, Royals Win 6-1

Nationals Edge Marlins 2-1, Now Seven Back In Wildcard



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Sigourney Weaver To Rejoin Ridley Scott In “Exodus”

Yep, still hot.

Will play human-alien hybrid who protects orphaned Israelite girl – no, wait…


Cyndi Lauper Accuses Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Of Encouraging Date Rape

Alec Baldwin Gets Into Street Scuffle With Photographer, Pins Him Against Car

Michael Buble And Wife Welcome Baby Boy

Pippi Longstocking Sex Tape Will NEVER See The Light Of Day


“Grey’s Anatomy” Actor Jason Bruening Heads To “Pretty Little Liars” Spinoff “Ravenswood”

Evan Ross Cast As Messalla In “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”

Paris Jackson “Doing Much Better” After Suicide Attempt, Grandmother Says

“Girls Gone Wild” Founder Joe Francis Going To Jail

Taylor Swift Disses Exes At VMAs

Diddy Brawls At VMA Afterparty While Jay-Z Shields Beyonce

No, Dr. Luke Not Judging “American Idol”

Naomi Watts Nervous Over Princes’ Reaction To Her Princess Di Portrayal



FOREIGNERS
Pro-Assad hackers Implicated In NYT, Twitter Attacks
Of Nuclear Village Idiots And Radiation Scaremongers
Russia Evacuates Citizens From Syria
Bombings Kill 51, Maim 150 In Baghdad
Israel Jittery Over Syria After Threats
PRC Police Hold Female Suspect After Boy’s Eye Gouged Out
Zimbabwe’s Disneyland Plans “Inappropriate”



BLOGS & STUFF
Doug Powers: @Barack Obama Thanks Katy Perry For Spreading The Word About Obamacare
Twitchy: Singer Jamie Grace’s Heartfelt Reaction To Miley Cyrus Video Proves Young People Matter In The Culture War
American Power: Hamptons McMansions
American Thinker: Obama’s War On Black Education
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: This Stupid Week, Do Over Edition
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Immigration Reform
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, August 27
Jammie Wearing Fools: Sen. Landrieu Urges Moving Cyber Jobs Out of DC: “Some of those jobs need to be located outside the blast zone”
JustOneMinute: Syria – A Time To Choose, Or Not
Pat Dollard: Russian Police Seize Painting of Putin, Medvedev In Womens’ Underwear
Protein Wisdom: Poor Blacks Overwhelmingly Support Vouchers
Shot In The Dark: Chalk Up A Win For Brad Carlson!
Jawa Report: Russian Official – West Is Like “Monkey With A Hand Grenade”
Megan McArdle: Will Smoke From Lew’s Burning Pants Obscure Debt Deal?


Category: Live at Five

#FreeKate Mom Kelley Hunt Smith’s Alternative Morality Lecture

Posted on | August 27, 2013 | 52 Comments

If your kid grows up to be a notorious criminal pervert, what do you do? Invent for yourself some alternative system of morality whereby you can praise your child (and congratulate yourself as a parent) while condemning others as “ignorant mean vile people.”

So, despite everything, Kelley says she “raised sweet, loving, accepting, kind” children who “are kindhearted”? Really?

“Beat her f**king ass, Emily! Beat her ass! Get that bitch!”

And there’s also this:

Local Teen Says Kaitlyn Hunt Was
‘Bully … Calling Me an Ugly Dyke’

Her kids are rancid trash, and Kelley Hunt Smith doesn’t want to admit, not even to herself that, she has been a truly terrible mother.




 


 

Category: Kaitlyn Hunt

Is Neal Rauhauser Trying to Scheme His Way Back Into Political Consulting?

Posted on | August 27, 2013 | 46 Comments

Three years ago, in August 2010, Democrat political consultant Neal Rauhauser published two articles under his “Stranded Wind” alias:

Claiming that there was a “centrally initiated effort” to harass him and other progressives on Twitter, Rauhauser described a plan for “hauling [a stalker] into court is a gateway to identifying the source of the strategy,” to “get up inside their network and collect actionable information.” Rauhauser solicited assistance in his plan of attack against conservatives online, to “force them into expensive, long distance, lengthy, discovery laden litigation” in order “to make a very visible example of at least one of them.”

The result of that plan, apparently, was the debacle known as “TwitterGate.” in which Rauhauser was accused of having “organized a group of E-Thugs meant to harass, threaten, provoke, disparage, intimidate, verbally assault, berate & employ hate-speech.”

Now, it seems, Rauhauser wants to get back into the politics game and has posted a weird conspiracy theory that involves me:

Nine months ago I swore off domestic politics and started paying attention to foreign policy issues. A large part of my disgust stemmed from the hate groups that have hijacked the GOP, in particular a drunken hillbilly named Robert Stacy McCain, who provided a forum for a paranoid, delusional mall cop in New Jersey to ruin my reputation with her obsessive promotion of a conspiracy theory known as Twittergate.
Groundswell: A Secret Tape Reveals How It Lobbied Boehner & Issa on Benghazi was both a delight and something of a shock. I was forced to take back all the bad things I had said about playing gotcha with wire taps earlier in 2013, and I was surprised to find that the same people who fabricate all sorts of ‘news’ about me are also directly connected to this group . . .
Other happenings in Maryland include an assault outside a courtroom, threats to judges and prosecutors, a courthouse cleared with a bomb threat, and some other things which are not public, but which all add up to a textbook definition of hate group tactics. Law enforcement has cause to act at the state level in Maryland and I strongly suspect there is already something in the federal pipeline. The smear machine behind this derpy ‘war’ on the Obama administration is under fire from GOP strategist Karl Rove and it’s literally one indictment short of tearing itself to pieces.
Nothing is going to stop that flow of Groundswell articles. The leak was handled correctly, given to an investigative journalism outlet with enough reach to make something of it rather than being spammed across the whole internet with bittorrent. I expect Akbar, McCain, and their toadies are all going to get swatted like the annoying little insects that they are — if the Maryland Democratic machine doesn’t do that job the Republican national machine certainly will.

When somebody told me last week that Rauhauser had posted this, my immediate reaction was, “Neal’s trolling for clients,” probably hoping he can get hired by the Maryland Democrat Party.

Neal is nuts. His assertion that “Groundswell” has anything to do with him is, so far as I know, based entirely on someone forwarding an e-mail from Ali Akbar to a Google group. Also, while we’re at it, “TwitterGate” was not a conspiracy theory, I’m not a drunken hillbilly, I don’t live in Maryland, and I don’t have any “toadies.”

Basically, everything Neal Rauhauser says is the exact opposite of truth, and by the way, he’s taking credit for killing Andrew Breitbart:

This undated tweet from @AndrewBreitbart is from either right before the 2010 election or shortly thereafter. The attention from he and his toadies chased me off LinkedIn, but it sent me on a two year mission which included him dropping dead in the midst of a battle of words with me and two anonymous Twitter commenters.

I checked. The date of that Breitbart tweet (at the top of this post) was Oct. 7, 2010. It’s true that on the day Andrew died, he was in a Twitter battle with Neal and some of Neal’s friends.

In the days immediately following Andrew’s death, Neal was actually bragging that his harassment had caused Breitbart’s heart attack, but he deleted that. Neal deletes a lot of his crap, once he gets called out on it. This was why he now thinks he can get away with dismissing TwitterGate as a “conspiracy theory,” because when he got caught by Tea Party activists, he deleted a lot of stuff — including his “WingNutWatch” Twitter account that was central to that fiasco — and got his “beandog” buddies to tell Adrian Chen that it was all a silly prank.

Bullshit, Neal. You can try to play that off as the imaginings of “a paranoid, delusional mall cop in New Jersey” (and oh, how you’ve been obsessed with “Zapem” for three years), but there were plenty of witnesses, and anybody can go read Patrick Read’s account complete with numerous screenshots showing communications between your “Stranded Wind” account and the “beandogs” who participated in the harassment of Tea Party activists.

You were guilty as hell and you know it and, to repeat, you provided the game plan for that little escapade in advance:

See, Neal, we not only know what you did in 2010, we know why you did it. You failed. You got caught. And your long campaign of revenge — your blame-shifting “Accuse the Accusers” tactics, to smear and demonize your enemies — has similarly failed.

Now, if the historical pattern holds true, Neal Rauhauser will go delete some more of his lies, pretend he never wrote it, claim victimhood, and accuse me of cyberstalking him.

And, oh yeah, Andrew was totally right about you, Neal.

UPDATE: Just in case you’ve never seen it before, this is part of the Twitter conversation between Neal Rauhauser and Andrew Breitbart on Feb. 29, 2012, just before Andrew’s death:

You see him taunting Breitbart, calling him a coward, suggesting that “my lawyers” were going to sue Breitbart. What I believe they were talking about was charges filed against Neal by Mike Stack who, you see, Neal accuses of “stalking” Anthony Weiner. Of course, as everybody now knows, there was never any stalking or hacking or “conspiracy” against Anthony Weiner — he was guilty as hell.

Just another busted lie from Neal Rauhauser . . .

 

Category: Andrew Breitbart

Rule 5 Tuesday

Posted on | August 27, 2013 | 20 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

For those who are new to the Rule 5 posts, be advised that while many of the following links are to pictures of attractively (if skimpily) clad young ladies, some of them are to young ladies wearing little or nothing, and these are NSFW in most places. Exercise discretion when you click, please.

Laughing Conservative prefers blondes – like, for example, Adrianne Palicki. Randy’s Roundtable also likes the blondes but prefers Kate Upton. Animal Magnetism contributes a Japanese Rule 5 Friday and of course, the Saturday Gingermageddon. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’s Pretty Girls On A Thursday is all about Bikini Girls With Machine Guns, while Fishersville Mike’s interest in tennis is explained by Sloane Stephens. Reaganite Republican spotlights Miss Dominican Republic, Yaritza Reyes, and Lowering The Boom brings the Super Girls. Ninety Miles From Tyranny offers the Morning Mistress, Hot Pick of the Late Night, and Hooters Girls With Guns; Hoverbored has Christina Masterson,   and the First Street Journal draws our attention to Portugal’s female troops this week.

EBL’s thundering herd of heifers this week includes Peaches & Cream, Raquel Welch doing the Space Girl Dance, the Subway Dance, and The Last Of Sheila. There’s also “Chelsea” Manning, a Rule 5 Fakeout, Kate Upton, Sydney Leathers, and a Law & Order SVU mashup to commemorate that show’s jumping the shark.

A View From The Beach has Bar Rafaeli Walking On (Roger) Waters, Here’s To Never Growing Up, Alligator Ugly, Tattooed Temptress Tied To Hernandez Homicide, Slip N’ Slide, Fun With The TSA, and Arcata Market Morning.

Wine, Women and Politics brings a Saturday Super Smorgasbord, Great Women And A Great Weekend, Friday Babe Buffet, Fine Friday Babes, Fine Wine And Women, and a reminder: You Can Never Have Too Many Babes.

American Power’s contributions include Britney Spears, Imogen Thomas, Jessica Davies, Gisele Bundchen, Bryiana Noelle, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Phoebe Cates.

Soylent Green warms up with Sunday Snoochita Dani and Natalie Wood before kicking off the week with Monday Motivationer Shannon, Overnighty Wax On…, Tuesday Titillation Mithral, Evening Awesome Lucia, Humpday Hawtness: Fly United With Nicole, Overnighty Luba, Falconsword Fursday: Dogs Are Stupid, Overnighty Val, Corset Morsels, T-GIF Friday: Son of Hoola-Hoop Awesome, Overnighty Roxanna, Now That’s Breakfast, Afternooner Random Redness, and Evening Awesome With Lens Flare May.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Elle Liberachi, his vintage babe is Angela Greene, and in addition to Sex In Advertising there’s Women of PETA XXXVII! Dustbury this week has Sara Evans and the women of Firefly.

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week included Teresa Palmer, Kiyume Chigara, Haruna Yabuki, Rosie Bulan, and Random Beauty; the top 100 hottest women list gets a serious dent with Tika Sumpter, Maria Ozawa, Megan Fox, Lorrie Morgan, Janine Turner, Cheryl Ladd, Phoebe Cates, Catherine Bach, Sanaa Lathan, Tamron Hall, Kathleen Turner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Simpson, Shania Twain, Constance Marie, Amerie, Kristin Kreuk, Vivica A Fox,  Crystal Bernard, Ciara, Nia Peeples, Gong Li, Shakira, Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, Robin Meade, Jessica Biel, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Kana Yume, and Brooke Baldwin.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 roundup is Saturday, August 31.

Category: Rule 5

Squeaky Fromme, Sara Jane Moore, Lee Harvey Oswald and the Radical Impulse

Posted on | August 27, 2013 | 105 Comments

Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme, 1975

President Gerald Ford’s video testimony about Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme’s 1975 assassination attempt has been released, and if you read through the story, you encounter this:

At times during the trial, [Fromme] was ordered removed from court because of her tantrums and bizarre ramblings about the environment, saving the redwoods and other topics. . . .
Seventeen days after his encounter with Fromme in Capitol Park, Ford was the target of a second assassination attempt, this time outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, where Sara Jane Moore fired a shot at him.
Moore had been associated with radical groups, including the Symbionese Liberation Army, and later would say she regretted firing the shot. Like Fromme, Moore was sentenced to life in prison. She was eventually released in 2007.

“Squeaky” Fromme was a former member of Charles Manson’s murderous hippie cult (whose story is told in Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi), and the Symbionese Liberation Army was the bizarre terrorist faction that became notorious for kidnapping heiress Patty Hearst. The SLA’s motto was, “Death to the Fascist Insect That Preys on the Life of the People.” (See the 2004 documentary, Guerrilla.)

All these people were crazy, but they took themselves quite seriously — as crazy people usually do — and the criminal havoc they caused was the frothing foam of the gigantic tsunami wave of political radicalism that crashed through America in the 1960s.

That wave was unleashed by the act of radical madman Lee Harvey Oswald, whose Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy is generally remembered as a turning point, after which many idealistic young people lost faith in the political system. Recently, I’ve been re-reading Edward Jay Epstein’s remarkable 1978 book, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald. In February 1963, Oswald met a young German immigrant, an engineer named Volkmar Schmidt who had studied psychology and was interested in political ideology:

When the conversation turned to the subject of the Kennedy administration, Schmidt expected that Oswald would express the usual liberal sentiments about the President’s attempting to bring about constructive reforms. Instead, Oswald launched into a violent attack on the President’s foreign policy, citing both the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 as examples of “imperialism” and “interventions.” He suggested that Kennedy’s actions against Cuba had set the stage for a nuclear holocaust . . .
As he listened to Oswald define more closely his political ideas, [Schmidt] began to work out his “psychological profile,” as he called it. Oswald seemed to be a “totally alienated individual,” obsessed with political ideology and bent on self-destruction. Even then, he reminded Schmidt of a Doestoevskian character impelled by his own reasoning toward a “logical suicide.”

Profound psychological alienation, which often manifests itself as a resentment of authority and a rejection of social norms, is the driving impulse of radicalism. Although radicals are typically, like Oswald, “obsessed with political ideology” and quick to cite government policies as the grievances that justify their radicalism, their alienation leads them to reject conventional politics. The radical lacks the kind of patience needed to work steadily to persuade voters and mobilize support for reform policies, because the radical’s real grievance is not political, but rather psychological, in nature.

Lee Harvey Oswald, arrested after an August 1963 pro-Castro protest

The alienated radical suffers from feelings of helplessness and insignificance and, unable to find satisfaction in ordinary life, seeks to vindicate himself — to prove that he is a person of historical importance — by grandiose gestures on behalf of fringe ideologies, savagely lashing out against “the system” he rejects in a sort of sour-grapes rationalization: Feeling rejected by society, he rejects society in revenge.

Because his true motives are profoundly irrational, rooted in his own psychological resentments, the radical’s political involvement makes no sense when closely scrutinized, as Schmidt quickly realized during his conversation with Oswald.

His burning hatred of Kennedy and his fanatical support of Castro’s Cuban revolution weren’t merely extreme in a political sense (others on the Left held similar views) but were symptomatic of a self-destructive impulse. Oswald embraced unpopular fringe beliefs for  the very reason that they were unpopular. His extremism enabled Oswald to rationalize his own obscure and marginal status in society as heroic: “Corrupt society rejects me because I courageously speak the radical truth.”

The Symbionese Liberation Army, circa 1973

Such alienated radicals exist in every age, but their ideas and behavior are influenced by trends in the mainstream society they reject. And, just as Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizer Sarah Jane Moore and Manson follower Squeaky Fromme carried forward the radical impulses of the 1960s into the 1970s, so too have we seen the radicalism of Bush-era anti-war activists carry over into the Obama age.

Social Destruction as Personal Revenge

Because their motives were basically psychological rather than political, the anti-Bush moonbats have kept up their radical craziness long after the original grievance has passed. The U.S. has pulled out of Iraq and is withdrawing from Afghanistan, but the radicals have not been placated by the policy changes they demanded, because policy changes are not really what radicals seek. Rather, the radical desires to destroy the society from which he is alienated.

Consider, for example, Adam Kokesh. Everyone familiar with the anti-Iraq War movement remembers how Kokesh zoomed to prominence in 2007 as a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and everybody who paid attention knew Kokesh was crazy.

In 2007, fringe nutjob Adam Kokesh was arrested on Capitol Hill.

In May of this year, Michelle Malkin warned conservatives against embracing Kokesh in his new guise as a libertarian gun-rights activist and, predictably, Kokesh soon proved her right. Last month, Kokesh was arrested on drug charges, at which time I explained:

[T]hose of us who first became aware of Kokesh as the poster boy for “Iraq Veterans Against the War” are unlikely to forget him: A self-righteous half-educated egomaniac strutting for the cameras and insulting people with ridiculous “chickenhawk” and “neocon” slurs. The first time I ever saw Kokesh in person was when he showed up to heckle David Horowitz at an event at George Washington University, FWIW.
His narcissistic camera-hogging and anti-social personality made Kokesh an unwelcome crazy even within the far-left millieu of Bush-era antiwar protests, where mental health was by no means a prerequisite for membership. (Hint: “Sociopath” is not a political philosophy.) Like a few other antiwar oddballs — including the dangerous kook Alex Jones — Kokesh drifted into the Ron Paul orbit, speaking at a Paulista rally during the 2008 GOP convention and then getting himself arrested for heckling John McCain during his acceptance speech.

Why have fringe kooks like this — who raged against Bush when all the cool kids were doing it — not been placated by Obama’s policies? For the same reason that Oswald, who embraced Marxism during the Eisenhower era, was not placated by John F. Kennedy’s liberalism: It’s not really about politics for these kooks.

As alienated as they are from mainstream of politics, however, this doesn’t mean radicals are not influenced by mainstream politics. The idea that Bush’s presidency was illegitimate was fostered by Democrats who falsely claimed Bush “stole” the 2000 election, and the same ridiculous “neocon chickenhawk” argument embraced by Kokesh was the basic rationale of John Kerry’s 2004 “reporting for duty” campaign, during which Dan Rather of CBS News sought to revive the claim that Bush had been AWOL from National Guard duty.

If Kokesh and other alienated radicals demonized Bush, their kook-fringe hatred was certainly shared by mainstream Democrats. And having stirred up these irrational and counterfactual resentments, the political Left denies responsibility for the predictable results.

For years, I’ve covered the political fringe for two basic reasons:

  1. It’s fun — The daily grind of mainstream politics gets dull. American politics is proverbially a football game played between the 40-yard-lines, where flamboyant rhetoric about fundamental differences in policies and principles are usually just carnival-barker ballyhoo, an attempt to arouse the voting public from their typical apathy. (The recent ratings slump at MSNBC shows how difficult it is to make Americans enjoy a diet of all-politics, all-the-time.) There are plenty of journalists working the D.C. beat who can give you the latest score in the Democrat-Republican football game, and there’s usually not a lot of value-added factor in my joining the scrum covering those stories. But the activities of fringe kooks who seldom make the front page of the Washington Post — yeah, that’s amusing, and often I can have a story like that nearly all to myself.
  2. The future always begins on the fringe — Until the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, the same-sex marriage movement was just a lot of angry noise from crazy gay people, but that Supreme Court ruling (and especially Justice Kennedy’s “emerging awareness” doctrine) immediately provided the legal basis for the Massachusetts court decision that mandated same-sex marriage. In the past 10 years, despite the fact that a majority of states have passed constitutional amendments to forbid recognition of same-sex marriage, activists in the media have made this issue so “mainstream” that no one dares even speak out against it for fear of being condemned as a hater. Likewise, when the first anti-war protest marches mobilized after the 9/11 attacks, opinion was strongly in favor of war, and both the 2002 and 2004 elections seemed to be repudiation of the radical protesters. Yet the next two elections, in 2006 and 2008, turned sharply against Republicans in large measure because of anti-war sentiment. In 2012, Mitt Romney was unable to articulate any important GOP criticism of Obama’s foreign policy, despite the obvious failure of Obama’s “Arab Spring” policy, because Republicans know they cannot win elections now as the pro-war party.

By successfully mainstreaming left-wing fringe movements, Democrats effectively deprived Republicans of two legs of what Richard Viguerie has called the “three-legged stool” of Reagan-era conservatism. Seemingly incapable of arguing over social policy or foreign policy, the GOP has effectively limited itself to arguing about fiscal/economic issues, only to discover the the Democrat “free stuff” platform has an inherent appeal to the so-called “low-information” voters whose mobilization was the key to Obama’s re-election campaign.

Yet to quote an old Red Rider lyric, “Lunatic fringe, I know you’re out there.” The alienated kooks who were attracted to the Left during the Bush era are still around, the same way ’60s refugees Squeaky Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore were still at large in 1975.

‘Daddy Issues’ as a Political Grievance

Look at how the Left is now trying to turn Barrett Brown into a mainstream figure, a heroic martyr for First Amendment freedom. Since his September 2012 YouTube meltdown that got him arrested for threatening an FBI agent, Brown has been celebrated as a “political prisoner” (!) by his fellow kooks who refuse to confront directly the abundant evidence that Brown was simply cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

December, 2010: Barrett Brown explains his plans on YouTube.

Barrett Brown was a heroin addict and, at a January court hearing, we learned that since his arrest, he has been prescribed Zoloft and Risperidon, powerful medications used to treat serious mental illnesses including depression and bipolar disorder.

Brown’s admirers choose to ignore this evidence, just as they ignore the glimmers of truth that emerged in his paranoid rants:

When I was seven years old, I first heard the term FBI. I don’t remember exactly the context. I did know that my parents were fighting a lot, that my dad would sometimes get angry and throw things at my mom. Uh, some of that I don’t remember; apparently I blocked it out, but it happened; uh, and part of the reason for that was because my dad was being indicted by the FBI. At the time, he had made several million dollars, after moving to Dallas as a young man in real estate; and one of his partners had been apparently been involved in land-flipping, which is so illegal and dangerous that it must be responded to, even, even the possibility of it, with a massive FBI response, regardless of the consequences for other people involved. Anyway my dad was found not guilty and apologized to by the judge sometime later, after he had spent most of the last of his money, uh, on lawyers – and the rest hunting in Africa; it’s not entirely the FBI’s fault. Ah, but it impacted me a lot, and I went from living in a nice house in Highland Park, one of the nicest communities in America, to living in a uhh, two-bedroom apartment with my mom and grandma, and sharing a bed with my mom for the next year, when I was in third grade. She taught me to meditate and whatnot; it was a great learning experience for me.
The fact that my complaint, my original complaint about the FBI, is that I’m no longer rich because of it, is a pretty small complaint in terms of what people go through every single day, because of not just the FBI but law enforcement and governments across the world.

“So, tell us about your Daddy issues, Barrett.”

Have any of Barrett Brown’s admirers attempted to verify this story that Barrett tells about his father? Not that I’m aware of.

My guess is that if you did investigate this story, you would find that Brown’s version of events is at odds with the actual facts of his father’s case. Nevertheless, the reader sees — and you can watch the YouTube video of this rant — how Brown uses this narrative to justify his hostility not only toward the FBI but also toward “law enforcement and governments across the world.”

The Quest for Cosmic Justice, as it were.

What is remarkable is that this transcript of Brown’s rant comes from the “Free Barrett Brown” Web site. Any of his admirers could read this transcript and, if they had the least bit of training in psychology, recognize the essentially personal nature of Brown’s insane rage.

Barrett Brown was crazy, and if you don’t see this — if you take seriously all his paranoid gibberish about a government conspiracy against him involving Jennifer Emick, HB Gary, Aaron Barr, Tom Ryan, Alan Everett, et al. — then you should seek psychiatric help.

In fact, however, you’ll find that many of the people who share Brown’s radicalism have already been diagnosed with mental illnesses. They’re on Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, and other heavy neurochemical treatments that suppress their symptoms without addressing the underlying personality disorder. Many of them, of course, are undiagnosed and untreated, self-medicating with marijuana, alcohol or other drugs. But time and time again, you will find that when you scratch a radical, a lunatic bleeds.

Via the “Free Barrett Brown” page, for example, you can find audio of Barrett’s August 2012 interview with John Tiessen. Recorded barely a month before Brown’s epic meltdown, the interview is remarkable primarily because John Tiessen is dangerously crazy — a convicted sex offender and admitted liar:

“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.”

John Tiessen, ranting on YouTube

The very fact that Tiessen admired Barrett Brown is evidence of how the relationship between a radical leader and his followers is often a folie a deux. Once you know that Barrett Brown was crazy — and I take credit for having been one of the first to recognize just how nuts we was — then you realize to what an extent all such radicalism is not a response to legitimate grievance, but symptomatic of mental illness.

The Occupy Wall Street movement was a kook-magnet that attracted lunatics, perverts and criminals of every imaginable variety, a smorgasbord of derangement that was nonetheless celebrated by the liberal media as an authentic grassroots protest. Mainstream liberalism lost interest in the Occupy movement, and many pretended that the endorsement of prominent Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi hadn’t actually happened, once the disgraceful criminality of the movement made it unpopular. Yet the radical resentments the Occupiers stirred up among the alienated fringe have not dissipated, even if they are no longer manifested in organized protests.

It is wrong to dismiss these kooks as irrelevant to mainstream politics, because the mainstream influences the kooks even while the kooks influence the mainstream. When I first took notice of Barrett Brown, more than a year before I made him the central focus of “Narcissism, Isolation and Trolls” in December 2010, he was such a fringe figure that people wondered why I paid him any attention. But now we see allegedly serious people taking Barrett Brown quite seriously.

Seek psychiatric help immediately.

 

Category: Culture, History
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