The Other McCain

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

Neal Rauhauser’s Sick Obsession and the #Anonymous #OpIsrael Hamas Scam

Posted on | November 17, 2012 | 67 Comments

Just got off the phone with a reporter who was wondering why this blog was named in the second paragraph of a press release from Anonymous about their support for the terrorist group Hamas:

It has come to our attention that conservative and pro-Israeli groups throughout the blogosphere have taken advantage of Operation Israel, attempting to solidify public opinion against Anonymous.
TheOtherMcCain.com posted an editorial this morning which stated the following: “If you ever doubted that Anonymous was a terrorist organization, they have now removed all reason for doubt.”

The post mentioned: “Thugs of a Feather: #Anonymous Supports Hamas Terrorists Against Israel.” Several news sites as well as bloggers have called attention to the pro-Hama declarations made by various accounts claiming to speak on behalf of Anonymous. So why, among all the sites reporting and commenting on this phenomenon, am I singled out in this press release that goes yammering on about the “oppression imposed by the Israeli government,” etc.?

The answer in two words: Neal Rauhauser, who has spent the past 24 hours figuratively high-fiving himself on his Blog Nobody Should Link, celebrating the fact that our site was targeted for an online attack yesterday that blocked or slowed traffic. This was not a DDOS attack, which requires the use of multiple accounts, but rather another method that can be done from a single computer.

In other words, it would appear, Rauhauser personally attempted to shut down our site, then tried to pretend that it was a collective attack by Anonymous, and has since carried on at his blog in an effort to convince others to join in on the attack. It’s a dishonest scam.

As for the press release from Anonymous, if Neal did not write it himself, it is almost certain that the person who did write it named my site so prominently at the prompting of Rauhauser, who has often boasted of his connections to Anonymous.

As anyone who has studied Rauhauser’s harassment methods knows, he has a childish love of the “you can’t catch me” game: He engages in surreptitious attacks on the targets of his cyberstalking and, if they publicly accuse him of it, Rauhauser then denies his involvement and mocks his target as being “paranoid” for suspecting him. Rauhauser did this in the 2010 “TwitterGate” scandal; after Neal’s involvement was exposed, he did the “you can’t catch me” trick, and succeeded in convincing some people that the orchestrated online harassment of Tea Party activists was just a “prank” that got out of hand.

Now, some people have suggested that I should just ignore Neal Rauhauser, as if ignoring him would cause him to stop his obsessive cyberstalking. It won’t, and this is not about me. When I ignore Rauhauser, his other targets — he has a long list of people with whom he is fanatically obsessed — continue to suffer harm and, in fact, even greater harm occasionally befalls those who assist Rauhauser in his harassment.

Former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown was arrested by the FBI after he got involved in one of Rauhauser’s operations. In recent weeks, Rauhauser has tried to gin up another one of his crazy conspiracy theories to explain Brown’s meltdown, but those of us who watched it happen know the part Neal played in that sad episode.

Neal Rauhauser is a dangerous person, perhaps more dangerous to his “friends” than to his enemies, and his latest apparent stunt — inciting Anonymous supporters against me — is a classic example. Anyone who permits themselves to be baited into criminal activity will  be subject to the same kind of prosecution that sent the “LulzSec” hackers to prison. And look what Anonymous is doing now:

Anonymous attacks over 650 Israeli sites, wipes
databases, leaks email addresses and passwords

Are these people insane? The United States government considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Not only is any U.S. resident participating in these criminal intrusions individually liable for those federal crimes, but Anonymous as an organization now must be considered a national security threat, giving aid to terrorists against a U.S. ally.

Indeed, what Anonymous calls the #OpIsrael project may be the work of foreign agents who have infiltrated the Anonymous collective. In an online space where people are intensively secretive about their identities, no one can be sure of another person’s actual motives. Therefore, in regard to #OpIsrael, the question is, “Cui bono?”

Who benefits from the online attacks on Israeli sites? Hamas. And who supports Hamas? Iran. The possibility that #OpIsrael is, in fact, a project of Iranian intelligence operatives cannot be dismissed. Any teenage techie who thinks it’s just a lot of lulz to get involved in this stunt — or any misguided idealist who thinks that hacking Israeli computers is a way to prevent “oppression” — is apt to learn a hard lesson.

It’s all just fun and games until someone ends up in federal prison. And if you don’t believe me, ask Barrett Brown.

UPDATE: A reader in the comments recommends Parmy Olson’s book, We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE III: Geopolitics and ‘Amateur Assclowns’

 


Category: Israel, Terrorism

Harry Reid’s Benghazi Cover-Up

Posted on | November 17, 2012 | 29 Comments

Now that we know for a fact that President Obama deliberately deceived Americans about the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi — remember, the president promised to “get to the bottom of it” — now the Senate Majority Leader does his part to suppress the ugly truth:

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t make it clear enough to Republicans that he opposes a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, he said it again Friday: No way.
In letters to key Republican senators, Reid put his foot down — again — on the idea of a special panel to dig into the Sept. 11 assault that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three diplomatic aides in Libya. A select committee would need a floor vote to be created, and Reid said he wouldn’t permit it.
“I refuse to allow the Senate to be used as a venue for baseless partisan attacks,” Reid wrote in the three-page letter, released Friday evening.

And, of course, by “baseless partisan attacks,” what Harry Reid actually means is, the truth.

Category: Uncategorized

FMJRA 2.0: Push The Button

Posted on | November 17, 2012 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Apparently, Everybody Involved in the Petraeus Scandal Is a Swinging Sex Freak

The Stalinist at Montclair State

2013: A Century Of Progress

Bizarre Statistical Improbabilities

The Slut Paula Broadwell

Rule 5 Sun- er, Tuesday

Please Don’t Tickle Me, Elmo — Or: What’s the Muppet Age of Consent?

If You Were Saying to Yourself, ‘This Petraeus Scandal Isn’t Crazy Enough …’

BREAKING NEWS: The Economy Sucks

Less ‘Representative’, More ‘Democracy’

FMJRA 2.0: Luxury Cage

Could InstaVision Invite Reince Priebus On For A Chat?

O’Neill: “All Politics Is Local”

The Other Woman’s Jealousy of the Central Command Liaison Brought About the Downfall of CIA Director Petraeus

The Republican Clown Car Campaign

The Triumph of Androgyny

When You’re Down to Your Last $4 Million, Hallucinogens May Seem Fun

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.13.12

Capitalization and Heteronormativity?

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.14.12

Awesome: Hamas Leader Destroyed by Twitter Message, Israeli Air Strike

Heckuva Job, Susan Rice!

Paranoid Theory: ‘Karl Rove Was Out Raising Money to Keep Santorum Alive’

Obama Administration’s Benghazi Gambit: Protect Rice, Scapegoat CIA

If The GOP Can’t Win On Mature Government In 2014. . .

Women’s Basketball Star Revealed as Lesbian, Also Violently Crazy

Israel Continues Kicking Ass in Gaza (With Another Awesome War Porn Video)

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.16.12

Great: Voters Legalize Marijuana, Unions Put Munchies-Maker Out of Business

Top linkers this week:

  1. Lonely Conservative (8)
  2. Daley Gator (6)

;_;

I’m going to be off the Internet much of next week , so the deadline for the FMJRA is extended to Saturday, November 24. Thanks to everyone for their linkagery.

 

 

 

Category: FMJRA Award

Jonah Goldberg Is Wrong

Posted on | November 17, 2012 | 36 Comments

He has made his peace with “compassionate conservatism” with an argument that bespeaks intellectual fatigue:

The evolving demographics of the country, combined with the profound changes to both the culture and the economy, demanded that the GOP change both its sales pitch and its governing philosophy.
Compassionate conservatism increasingly faded from view after 9/11. Bush ran as a war president first and a compassionate conservative second (at best) in 2004. Still, it’s worth remembering that Bush won a staggering (for a Republican) 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. Romney got 27 percent.
Moreover, according to exit polls, Romney decisively beat Obama on the questions of leadership, values, and economic expertise, but he was crushed by more than 60 points on the question of which candidate “cares about people like me.”
I still don’t like compassionate conservatism or its conception of the role of government. But given the election results, I have to acknowledge that Bush was more prescient than I appreciated at the time.

Exit polls, Jonah? You’re going to surrender to the Entitlement Culture on the basis of exit polls? If we have to start making arguments for limited government en Espanol, so be it, but first things first: Why did Romney lose the election?

Did Romney lose because of his policy positions? Or did Romney lose because the Obama campaign, with the eager assistance of what Andrew Breitbart called the Democrat-Media Complex, succeeded in portraying Romney as a stereotypical Clueless Republican?

That the Clueless Republican does not “care about people like me” is not really a matter of policy, but of perception, and a big part of that perception is about narrative arc.

People want many things in a presidential candidate, but one thing they pretty much require is that the candidate be able to tell a story about his life and career — who he is — in the context of how he intends to govern. The up-by-the-bootstraps biography of Ronald Reagan stood him in good stead throughout his political career which, in case you’ve forgotten, didn’t really begin until 1964 when Reagan was past 50.

Romney’s narrative arc didn’t work so well. Among the candidates for GOP nomination this year, only Herman Cain had the up-by-the-bootstraps Reaganesque biography. Of course, Rick Perry also came from humble origins, and Rick Santorum’s tales of his Italian immigrant father were inspirational, but both Perry and Santorum entered politics early in life which, generally, is a liability for a presidential candidate.

The “cares about me” question is a matter of perception, not policy, and is in large measure a proxy for “likeability,” which is a very superficial, instinctive reaction. George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” barely enabled him to defeat the unlikeable Al Gore and the equally unlikeable John Kerry. In 2012, in addition to having the Allstate Insurance man as their candidate, Democrats also trotted out the unctuously faux-empathetic Bill Clinton. The Republicans, by contrast, gave primetime convention spots to egotistical blubberbutt Chris Christie and the disgruntled ramblings of Clint Eastwood.

Given the manifold advantages of the Democrats in the past campaign — and incumbency is an advantage not to be underestimated — and the various specific shortcomings and failures of the Republicans, the GOP defeat is not really difficult to explain.

Furthermore, and quite importantly, the election was actually quite close: A margin of 3 percentage points (about 3 million out of 110 million cast) in the popular vote, with Romney competitive in all the key swing states. Romney lost Florida by only 70,000 votes out of 8.3 million and lost Ohio by about 100,000 out of 5.1 million. These are not landslide margins. This was not a “mandate” election for Obama, no matter what anybody tells you, and for Republicans to let themselves be spooked by exit polls or to propose a wholesale reorganization of their party because of a panic about “demographics” is absurd.

Like I said, Jonah, I blame your endorsement of “compassionate conservatism” on intellectual fatigue. You wrote that when you were tired and discouraged. So are we all tired and discouraged. So let’s rest up, recover our morale, and try to think calmly about the future.

Also, Jonah, you should adopt my rule: Never talk strategy in public.

It has become entirely too common, in the “Smartest Guy in the Room” competition among pundits (and would-be pundits) to proclaim strategic insights to the public, and it’s just stupid. This  is comparable to an NFL coach putting up a message on the Jumbotron screen: “We’re going to run a play-action pass.” Democrats can read the Internet, you know. Hell, they invented the Internet.

Finally, Jonah, I think Rush Limbaugh is closer to the mark in analyzing the root causes of the GOP’s problem:

The things that [younger people] just assume are true, like there is no doubt whatsoever that we are destroying the planet with global warming, no doubt. They can’t even conceive of what you and I both know to be the truth, and that is, the whole global warming thing is a hoax. They do not even think it’s a political issue. They do not realize that everything they believe in has been totally corrupted by politics. What they think is science is nothing more than corruption by the left, but they don’t know any better.

Global warming? Democrats invented that, too. Like “homophobia” and the “War on Women,” Republicans are losing young “skulls full of mush” because of phony issues manufactured by the Democrats, issues skillfully marketed by the Democrats’ leftist allies in academia, the news media and the entertainment industry.

Category: Election 2012, Jonah Goldberg

Sun Rises In East, And President Obama Knew About Benghazi

Posted on | November 17, 2012 | 19 Comments

by Smitty

We explore realms of the obvious:

In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.

Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”

. . .

How could the president and his senior staff then have allowed (or rather, sent) Rice to go out to tell an entirely different tale to the American people on Sept. 16 on five TV shows?

One explanation might be that the President figures we “can’t handle the truth”. And by “can’t handle” I mean “do not deserve” or “lack the power to hold him to anything like doing the job of President”.

Chris Cassone has recorded the Benghazi anthem. Spread it virally. May the deaths of Stevens, Smith, Woods and Doherty, arguably the most blatant combat snuffing since Uriah the Hittite, be a millstone about Obama’s neck.

Aside: just to let you know how far America has fallen, the Russian government has passed a budget, while a buried Ronald Reagan spins with sufficient angular velocity for use as a stable element.

via Insty

Category: Barack Obama, Libya

Democrat Forced to Confess That, Indeed, He Is Well-Hung ’70s Porn Star

Posted on | November 16, 2012 | 7 Comments

Mark Suben was recently re-elected District Attorney of Cortland County, N.Y. Today he admitted that in the 1970s, he performed in porn films under the name “Gus Thomas.”

And by “admitted,” of course I mean, bragging.

Category: Scandal

A Victim of Racism, Sexism, Homophobia and Her Violent Lesbian Ex-Girlfriend

Posted on | November 16, 2012 | 11 Comments

WNBA star Jennifer Lacy, who was the victim of a frightening attack by her former teammate and ex-girlfriend Chamique Holdsclaw, today issued a statement via Twitter:

Last night when I blogged about Holdsclaw’s violent outburst, some readers wondered what the point was, so I explained:

What we are supposed to believe, according to political correctness, is that all problems experienced by homosexuals can be attributed to the hateful bigotry of homophobes. In much the same way, all problems experienced by black people are the result of racism, and all the problems of women are blamed on the oppressive sexist patriarchy. So when we encounter a black lesbian terrorizing her black lesbian ex-girlfriend, this is somewhat difficult for the politically correct to explain. However, if you dare to point out the seeming contradiction — the victims victimizing their fellow victims, without any prompting from straight white male oppressors — the politically correct will say that the mere fact that you noticed this makes you a sexist, racist homophobe.
Heads, they win the argument. Tails, you lose.
Never argue with a liberal. You’re only wasting your breath.

Here you have two eminently successful black lesbians in a tragic situation and — gosh darn it! — there’s no way a patriarchal white male racist homophobe can be blamed. This contradicts the Left’s politically correct victimhood narrative, which tells us that there must be a right-wing bogeyman to blame for everything. Meanwhile, Holdsclaw has been released on $100,000 bond:

judge in Atlanta on Friday set bond at $100,000 for ex-WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Chamique Holdsclaw, who was in jail on assault and weapons charges.
She is accused of firing a shot into a car belonging to 29-year-old Jennifer Lacy, who plays for the Tulsa Shock. Police say the 35-year-old Holdsclaw also used a bat to smash the car’s windows. Holdsclaw had been in custody at the Fulton County Jail.
No one was injured in the assault. Lacy told police that Holdsclaw was an ex-girlfriend and they were Atlanta Dream teammates in 2009. Holdsclaw was ordered to wear a monitoring device and have no contact with Lacy.

Just a few months ago, Holdsclaw was set to co-produce a lesbian-themed TV show, part of the “Gee, How Refreshingly Normal and Wholesome Gay People Are” cultural narrative — which we aren’t supposed to describe as part of a deliberate propaganda “agenda” — and this unfortunate incident has probably messed that up, too. In fact, her bizarre attack on Lacy messed up the whole narrative of Holdsclaw as a Heroic Survivor, as ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel writes:

Last weekend, [Holdsclaw] attended a conference in Orlando, Fla., for Active Minds, Inc., an organization that seeks to educate and encourage college students, in particular, about confronting mental health issues. Holdsclaw spoke on a panel there on Nov. 10, discussing athletes and mental health, and she tweeted about her experiences at the conference. The next day back home in Atlanta, Holdsclaw attended the Tennessee women’s basketball game at Georgia Tech. She cheered on her alma mater and posed for pictures, including with former Lady Vol teammate and current assistant coach Kyra Elzy.
Just two days later, according to Atlanta police, Holdsclaw attacked Lacy, who described herself as a former girlfriend. Many followers of the WNBA had been aware of the relationship.

Oh, really? Who were these “followers” who had been “aware of the relationship” that nobody in the press corps actually ever wrote about? Prior to the attack by her ex-girlfriend Holdsclaw, it wasn’t exactly public knowledge that Lacy and Holdsclaw had been lovers, was it?

That lesbianism is overwhelmingly common in the WNBA — well, I suppose “many followers” are “aware” of that, too. Rather than advertise this fact, however, the league’s marketing strategists keep it on the down-low in an effort to attract a “mainstream” fan base.

I mean, how many suburban parents are going to let their daughters go on a field trip to see the Professional Lesbian Role Models League?

Someone might call attention to the shoddy hypocrisy of this charade, were it not for the fact that (a) it could be construed as “homophobic” to call attention to the nearly ubiquitous lesbianism of WNBA players, and (b) only Republicans can ever be accused of hypocrisy.

Category: Crime

Great: Voters Legalize Marijuana, Unions Put Munchies-Maker Out of Business

Posted on | November 16, 2012 | 17 Comments

Some stoner in Colorado just put down the bong, looked at the TV and said, “Dude. No more Twinkies or Ho-Ho’s? Bummer.”

Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said.
“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.” . . .
In announcing its decision, Hostess said its wind down would mean the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores in the United States.
Hostess suspended bakery operations at all its factories and said its stores will remain open for several days to sell already-baked products. In the Chicago area, there were reports of Hostess products flying off the shelves.

On the bright side, the weeders can still enjoy Papa John’s pizza.

Category: Economics, Unions
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