The Other McCain

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

NBC-4 Covers Pat Moran/Project Veritas

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

We’re fans of NBC-4. Jim Vance is just a legend. Sure, they’re in the tank for #OccupyResoluteDesk, but this report on the Pat Moran / Project Veritas situation handles things in a journalistic manner:

For this much coverage, I’m guessing that Jim Moran just isn’t all that well-loved. Great work, NBC-4!

Category: Jim Moran, Virginia

Prayers For Zilla And Riehl

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Via Fausta comes grim word:

Apparently Dan Riehl isn’t doing so weel, either. I’ve heard rumors of everything from pneumonia to conjugal heart failure. As he’s in a local hospital, I shall have to try to get by tomorrow. My last interaction with Dan:

Category: Blogging

Wasn’t Joe Biden The First ‘Bold, Forceful Decision’ For Obama?

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

Per the Blaze:

Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, called into “The Glenn Beck Program” on TheBlazeTV Thursday and recounted his interactions with the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden at the ceremony for the Libya victims at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He told host Glenn Beck that what they told him, coupled with new reports that indicate the Obama administration knew very good and well, almost immediately, that a terrorist attack was occurring in Benghazi, make him certain that the American people are not getting the whole truth.
Vice President Biden, as he has become known to do, reportedly made a wildly inappropriate comment to the father who had just lost his hero son.
Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”

Biden reflects poorly on his office, his boss, and his country.

A week from next Tuesday, America: you know what to do.

Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Joe Biden

Is Virginia Still a Battleground?

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 13 Comments

Mixed signals about the state of the presidential campaign in Virginia. Obama drew a reported 15,000 people to a rally in Richmond today, and has reportedly scheduled an appearance next week with Bill Clinton in Manassas. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan had a rally this morning in Bristol and will have another rally this evening in Charlottesville, while Romney is scheduled for three stops Sunday in Virginia, including his own rally in Richmond.

Rasmussen has Mitt Romney +2 in Virginia, while PPP has Obama +5, and they can’t both be right.

It therefore would appear that Virginia is still a hotly contested battleground, yet there is apparent confirmation today of a rumor I heard Tuesday, namely that Obama has pulled half his staff from Virginia and also quit polling the state. So what’s actually happening?

My best guess, based on observation, polls and anecdotal reports: Romney will win Virginia, and the Democrats know it, but — but — the question is whether Romney will win Virginia by enough of a margin to allow the networks to call the state early. If Obama can make a strong enough showing to keep Virginia in the “too close to call” column past 9 p.m. Eastern time, then this avoids the kind of clear shift on the Electoral College map that might suppress late Democrat turnout in the West, which would help tip Iowa, Colorado and Nevada toward Romney.

So the massive Republican get-out-the-vote effort in Virginia — which I have had a chance to watch first-hand — will continue.

Something else: Notice the Left’s desperate pushback, including the latest from Nate Silver, against the idea that Romney has momentum coming out of the debates. This is because, of course, Romney has momentum coming out of the debates.

Graveyard whistling can be sweet music.

Category: Election 2012, Polls, Virginia

Jennifer Emick Profiles Neal Rauhauser

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 13 Comments

(NOTE: When I first began reporting on “The Kimberlin Files” in May, the involvement of Democrat consultant Neal Rauhauser struck me as particularly newsworthy. Rauhauser gained notoriety for his involvement in the 2010 “TwitterGate” episode, and the report that Rauhauser was involved in Brett Kimberlin’s harassment of Aaron Walker indicated a potential link between Kimberlin’s activities and the official Democrat Party political apparatus. For the past five months, Rauhauser has been constantly attempting to smear and harass individuals he has targeted as critics of Kimberlin and himself. In recent weeks, it appears, Rauhauser’s tactics have increasingly targeted Jennifer Emick, a well-known online researcher who has helped expose criminal hackers associated with “Anonymous.” Last week, Ms. Emick contacted me and offered to provide her own assessment of Rauhauser’s activities, which she has consented to publish here. — RSM)

By Jennifer Emick

Neal Rauhauser is a self-described left wing political activist and “consultant.” He is close to activist and convicted high school bomber Brett Kimberlin, who is also his sometime employer.

He is also involved, since 2008 or so, with the Anonymous hacktivist collective, trolls from Encyclopedia Dramatica, and the Occupy Wall St. movement.

A number of conservative bloggers claim he has targeted them for harassment, and there seems to be good evidence that many of these claims are true. He is certainly intolerant of opposing points of view.

Neal is reportedly a diagnosed sociopath and narcissist. His whereabouts are generally unknown, as he appears to be an under-employed itinerant who takes great pains to conceal his location. He appears to have no fixed address, and claims to move around a lot, primarily between Illinois and Washington, DC.

He describes himself as a hacker, and frequently writes about his fascination with the romantic portrayals of hackers in novels like Snowcrash and Neuromancer. He is very proficient technologically, and has worked in IT for many years.

Neal is a prolific blogger, who produces up to several dozen posts per day on a number of topics. Most are rambling, expansive conspiracy theories involving people in politics, government, and defense. Sometimes, he makes threats that would get most people visited by the Secret Service.

Neal keeps extensive online enemies lists, where he profiles individuals and organizations he believes are part of a conspiracy against himself, his employer, or various political figures on the left. Of course, he has much to fear, as his targets are all “mental patients.” He exhibits extreme paranoia about being spied on by the government and right wing political operatives.

He simultaneously claims that people he has targeted for his attentions are “stalking” him, while making overt admissions he is deliberately provoking and harassing them. Neal’s MO seems to be to fixate on an individual or group as responsible for one of more conspiracies, write extensively on these people, and then claim victimhood when one of his targets takes notice. Read more

Category: The Kimberlin Files

Neal Rauhauser, Fugitive?

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 21 Comments

Mike Stack was the original target of “SWATting” in the wake of the Anthony Weiner scandal. Stack’s Twitter contact with the mysterious “Dan Wolfe” made him a target, and he has subsequently become the focus of Neal Rauhauser’s persistent obsessive interest.

Stack ultimately filed harassment charges against Rauhauser, but was persuaded to submit the case to court mediation and, at a May 24 hearing in New Jersey, an agreement was reached in which Rauhauser agreed to very specific prohibitions against future harassing behavior. Rauhauser has repeatedly violated the terms of that agreement and has, in fact, recently escalated his online harassment of Mike Stack.

So today, Stack posted a copy of an arrest warrant for Neal. The warrant was issued Oct. 11, which means that Rauhauser has basically been a fugitive from justice for the past two weeks.

The interesting angle is that Rauhauser is also a co-defendant in the Virginia civil case of Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. (See continued coverage of that case by William Hoge.) One would imagine that Virginia courts would be obliged to recognize the New Jersey warrant. Therefore, if Rauhauser were to show up in court to contest Walker’s lawsuit, he would likely be subject to immediate arrest.

UPDATE: On the one hand, Neal is as crazy as a fruit bat and his behavior is wildly unpredictable. Read more

Category: The Kimberlin Files

Polls Continue to Show Trend Toward Romney — Nate Silver Notwithstanding

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 33 Comments

Excuse me for my continued attention to Nate’s graveyard-whistling, but no matter how clear the evidence of a pro-Romney trend, the Grand Swami at the New York Times won’t stop. He’s now raised the likelihood of Obama’s re-election to 71.0%. (The one-tenth of a percentage point being necessary to the pretense of scientific exactitude.)

Is Nate Silver hustling an insider-trading scam with InTrade? Or is he merely acting as an Obama pompom girl? Either way, the poll-watcher at the nation’s most influential newspaper cannot be unaware of how his coverage functions to shape elite opinion, which is in turn reflected in other media coverage that then influences mass opinion, and believing that Nate Silver is acting as an honest neutral broker in this transaction requires a faith in human goodness that I lack.

–

When I looked at the Real Clear Politics national average this morning, my eye was automatically drawn to the ABC/Washington Post poll that shows Romney now leading 49-48. This strikes me as significant because two weeks ago (Oct. 10-13) the same poll had Obama leading 49-46. Thus they are reporting a net pro-Romney shift of +4. It doesn’t matter for this purpose, by the way, whether ABC/WaPo is accurate as to the actual number, so long as their method is consistent — the trend is what it is. Meanwhile, both Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls have Romney leading by 3 points, and the latest Associated Press poll has Romney ahead by 2 points.

“But, but, but . . . Ohio!”

Yeah, I know: Obama’s poll numbers in the Key Battleground State of Ohio — as it is always called — are consistently better than in the national polls, but I do not believe that any amount of advertising, campaigning or ground-game organizing in Ohio is going to enable Obama to overcome at a purely local level what is a clear national trend toward Romney.

That is to say, if Mitt’s pulling ahead nationally, Ohio will inexorably move in the same direction, even if the shift is smaller. So when we look at the Ohio polls and see three that show it at tie, and five others showing Obama ahead by 1%-5% margins — a net advantage of 2.1% in the RCP — we have to weigh two facts (a) Obama’s small but persistent lead, and (b) the national trend toward Romney. If the trend continues, Ohio will follow that trend, and subsequent polling will reflect it.

By the way, that Time poll of Ohio is so hinky as to be dubious.

Time hasn’t previously polled Ohio at all this cycle, and for them to come in during the last two weeks of the campaign with a poll on the high side of the margin — matching the Obama +5 of PPP and Quinnipiac — is highly dubious. You can go chew on Time’s sample if you want, but the statistical details are irrelevant to my basic suspicion. If it walks like a scammy poll and talks like a scammy poll, it’s probably not a duck.

We do not know, by the way, whether the Romney trend will continue over the next 11 days. Polls are a lagging indicator and you can’t extrapolate numbers forward. Welcome to the Twilight Zone phase of the campaign, where things become mysterious. But be encouraged by Ed Morrissey’s analysis of the new AP poll:

Now Romney leads without leaners by three points, 45/42 — and a firm number of 42% for a incumbent is a disaster 12 days out from the election. When the “could change mind” voters are taken out, it’s even worse — 43/41 for Romney, with the incumbent barely above four out of ten voters.

Too early for predictions, but an incumbent persistently below 50% in October is usually what polling experts call “a loser.”

UPDATE: Ted Frank offers an informed statistical critique of Nate Silver’s methodology, which is different than my own criticism, namely that sabremetrics doesn’t work for polls, because politics ain’t baseball. Political opinion and voter behavior differ from the performances of baseball players, and “weighting” polls based on past performance cannot overcome the fact that polls are a lagging indicator. Nate Silver’s pretense of scientific exactitude — his constant and increasingly obnoxious reference to his own self-proclaimed expertise — is itself a factor that may shape public opinion, and he ought to damned well know it.


Category: Election 2012, Polls

Obama: ‘I’ve Got a Plan!’

Posted on | October 25, 2012 | 9 Comments

Yesterday, I woke up and turned the TV to MSNBC (which I watch so you don’t have to), and they showed almost the entirety of a speech Obama gave at Davenport, Iowa. Perhaps you can watch it without succumbing to the urge to throw your computer across the room:

It’s particularly painful for me to watch something like that because, as shameful as it is to admit, I used to be a Democrat. I actually believed they were going to do things to help people, and I actually believed in all that idiotic stuff they said about rich people and eeee-vil Republicans.

Once you wake up and realize that they’re just running a scam, that they’re never going to keep their promises, and that it’s all just a cynical hustle to enhance their own power, this kind of stuff doesn’t fool you anymore. Instead, it makes you angry that there are still people so stupid as to fall for it, and not even I could be sarcastic enough to mock Obama as much as he deserves to be mocked. But I decided to give it a good try anyway:

Less than two weeks before Americans finally have a chance to vote him out of office, President Obama has begun shouting at campaign rallies: “I’ve got a plan!”
It’s really a slogan, not a plan, referring to a 20-page pamphlet that is about as plausible as Obama’s notorious June 2008 boast that his election would mark “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Difficult as it may now be to recall, there were once “spiritually advanced people” who looked at this Chicago machine politician and saw “a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being … who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.” Obviously, none of these “advanced” people read The American Spectator, but many of them are still out there awaiting this “new way of being,” which is the only possible explanation for the crowds who show up to cheer their hero as he reads his lines from the teleprompter screens.
“We’ve got a long way to go, Iowa, but we’ve come too far to turn back now,” Obama declared at a rally Wednesday in Davenport. “We can’t afford to go back to what got us into this mess. We’ve got to stick with policies that are getting out of this mess. That’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States of America.”
The idolatrous horde burst into applause and began chanting, “Four more years!” And their idol hadn’t even told them about The Plan yet. The following passage differs from the official transcript in that it has been punctuated to convey more accurately the cadence of the Lightworker’s delivery: “Now, the good news is I’ve got a plan! That will actually create jobs! That will actually reduce the deficit! That will actually create middle-class security! And unlike Mitt Romney, I’m proud to talk about what’s actually in my plan! Because my math actually adds up!”
Spiritually advanced people don’t usually get too excited about math, but for a Lightworker, they’re willing to make an exception. . . .

Please read the whole thing at The American Spectator and, by the way, I’ve got my own plan: I’m going to rent a car today and head out on the campaign trail. We’ve only got 12 days to go,  and I’m planning to go all the way to victory on Election Night, so please hit the freaking tip jar!

 





Category: American Spectator, Barack Obama, Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Iowa
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