‘I Know This All Sounds Crazy, But …’
Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 7 Comments
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
The title quote is from Patterico’s post noting the one-year anniversary of his SWATting, as he was handcuffed and talking to police:
I said something like this: “Look. This is a hoax. I think I know what’s going on here. I’m a blogger. I’m also a Deputy D.A., but I don’t think this is about my job. It’s about things I wrote on my blog. This same thing happened to someone else last week, in New Jersey. Someone called and said he killed his wife, and the police showed up at his house and pointed guns at him, just like this. He and I were writing about the same story. We were both writing about Congressman Weiner, the Congressman who sent the picture of his underwear. We were both writing about that. We both got threatened by email. Check my phone. I talked to a New Jersey detective about it. His name is Jason Larson. His name and number are on my phone. I know this all sounds crazy, but that’s what’s going on.”
Read the whole thing. You might suppose that law enforcement would make such a crime a high-priority investigation. You might suppose that the news media would treat SWATting, as a terrorist threat to First Amendment rights, with at least as much attention as they give to SWATting of adolescents playing online video games.
You would be wrong on both counts. And that’s why it’s no joke when I dateline these dispatches “From An Undisclosed Location.”
– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown
Short Quiz: ‘Who Is She, And Why Is She Not In Congress??’
Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 6 Comments
by Smitty
. . .those were the questions posed by YouTube commenter westedinburgh concerning this 30 June 2012 clip from the Americans for Prosperity event in Sterling, VA. Answers:
(a) She is Kate Obenshain, of Young America’s Foundation and frequent Fox News commenter.
(b) Well, her delivery is kinda muddled. Underneath all of the spin and whitewash, she seems somewhat unimpressed by Tim Kaine’s recored as the Governor of Virginia. It’s as though she cannot seem to accept that incompetent boobs such as Kaine are the political destiny of the U.S., as we slouch forward to 3rd World status.
Uppity Virginians like Kate were the cause of the Revolution in the first place, and now they seem to be going after Holy Progress in a most unbecoming way. Kate is the sort of person who would not do well in Congress when Nancy “Are you serious, are you serious?” Pelosi re-asserts her position as Queen Bee this November.
George Allen for Senate
The only bigger disaster than Tim Kaine is BHO himself
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Dick Morris Thinks ObamaCare, Tim Kaine, And ObamaNomics Are Swell
Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 8 Comments
by Smitty
Oh, wait: make that ‘Swill‘. First day, new ears.
Yesterday morning I took in the Americans for Prosperity event over in Sterling, up the road from Dulles Airport. Dick Morris was the marquee speaker. If you have only time for one clip, Watch The Last One. In the background of these, raising a visible hand, is Bill of Raising the Invisible Hand. Welcome to the fray, Bill! Now get postin’, you. On to Mr. Morris.
1. The ObamaCare decision: menacing danger, or dangerous menace?
2. Single Payer is the ultimate goal. How is that working?
3. ObamaCare: why isn’t it featured in the half hour victory lap video? And how about our crappy foreign policy?
4. Morris goes on about the Debt Implosion Cycle as though it is some sort of problem. But Barack Obama told me just to chill out and think Correct Thought. Morris offers a simple explanation of how the Federal Reserve exacerbates the problem. If Morris knows so much, why can’t he just be happy with his new Obama overlord? It is very clear, based upon all this, that there is no solace in knowledge, and we should just relax and enjoy our Socialist bliss, rather than fret these knotty details:
5. Morris wants to stop the Federal borrowing, and bringing down the debt. The tax vote shotgun could potentially pump enough rounds into zombie ObamaCare. Tim Kaine love part one:
6. Morris continues the Tim Kaine love, and a reminder that politicians are not divine, individually or collectively:
7. The encore, when Morris digs into his colostomy bag of election prognostication for some surprising observations:
Good times, if you’re the sort of American who loves liberty and isn’t going to let a sad pack of Commie jackwagons take it from you.
WOLVERINES!
Rule 5 Sunday: Exile On Duke Street
Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 11 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
Brought to you from a McDonald’s somewhere in Alexandria, Virginia, since the burrow is still without power…anyway, some of the following links are most definitely NSFW. Y’all been warned.
EBL returns for a second week with more Kate Upton, Through Human Eyes publishes yet another testimonial to the power of Rule 5, and Fishersville Mike has a Wimbledon pic for your consideration. First Street Journal this week features the women of the Marine Corps, and Randy’s Roundtable takes a midweek break with Hope Dworczyk and Yasmin Jordao.
Soylent Green starts off with a shoutout to the Ukraine, followed by the Monday Motivationer, Tuesday Titillation, Humpday Hawt, a post for the last of the June brides, Corsetcare, Heather Knox, and something for the Feral Irishman. Also, Saturday Shera!
El Opinador Compulsivo serves up Tierra Lee, Sierra, The Magnificent Seven, Sophia Loren, Ingrid Seynhaeve, and Hardee’s Southwest Patty Melt With Jalapenos…and Kate Upton. Viva Hardees! 🙂
A View From The Beach starts off by channeling the Deschanels, then whines about the grunting women of tennis, informs us that Silvio Berlusconi is planning a comeback, offers a Shawn Colvin video and the “science is for chicks” video, This is followed by an utterly imbecilic sex post, pheromones, and a cute Ukrainian reporter.
At The Camp Of The Saints, it’s Gio Ott, the Rule 5 News, and Berit Birkeland. Proof Positive offers Danneel Harris Ackles, vintage babe Barbara Stanwyck, Tiffani Theissen in the Sex in Advertising segment, a video of the Hooters Pageant, and a testament to the power of Xenu! Dustbury closes out the linkagery with Aussie swimmer Stephanie Rice and Emily Deschanel.
Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Next week’s links will be due in the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox no later than Saturday, July 7.
How Stupid I Was: 2011 Edition
Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 4 Comments
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
How easy is it to miss a big story? This easy: While I was packing up my desk to move to our new home — thanks, Brett! — I found some notes I’d taken of a phone interview I’d done with Andrew Breitbart in the wake of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s resignation. I’d meant to write an article for The American Spectator based on that interview, but the GOP primary campaign started heating up before I could complete the article, and so I just forgot about it.
The other day, I was packing my desk and came across the notes — as usual, scrawled on the back of an envelope — and saw the names “Mike Stack” and “Lee Stranahan” and I was like, “Holy sh*t!”
A big chunk of the same story I’m now covering so intensively was right there in my notes, taken in late June 2011, and I hadn’t realized it. How had I lost track of that story, so that when I bumped into it almost accidentally on May 17 of this year, it caught me by surprise?
Well, something else was happening in late June 2011: Herman Cain’s campaign operation in Iowa was in disarray. Staffers were quitting or being fired, and so I put aside the Breitbart/WeinerGate article and spent the Fourth of July weekend on the phone with various sources, eventually writing an article entitled “Iowa Calling” (The American Spectator, July 6, 2011). And I never got back to that Breitbart feature, until Andrew died in March.
Like a lot of other political reporters, as soon as Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace, my attitude was: End of story. Move on.
For a week or two after Weiner’s resignation, I noticed some people arguing over things like “Betty and Veronica” and “Who was Dan Wolfe?” But all that struck me as useless trivia. The scandalized politician resigns and the story is Officially Over, as far as the press corps is concerned. Even though I’m now in the blogosphere, when I’m actually reporting news, I still think like an Old School newspaper reporter, and arguing over obscure details of Last Week’s Sex Scandal is (pardon the pejorative) amateurish.
So that’s how I missed it, see?
Yeah, I was mystifed by the “Betty and Veronica” angle, and the Dan Wolfe angle was peculiar, but that was “Grassy Knoll” stuff, not something I could afford to waste time worrying about while there was a presidential campaign to cover. In all honesty, my feeling was, “Look at those amateurs, running off on a useless snipe hunt.”
Bah, humbug.
I didn’t know Mike Stack and Patterico got SWATted. I didn’t even know what SWATting was. It never occurred to me that the fallout from WeinerGate might be far more serious than the GOP primary campaign (which turned out to be kind of a useless snipe hunt, too).
Now, however, I look back with regret at my stupid failure to recognize the significance of elements of WeinerGate I dismissed as trivial. All of which is prelude to pointing out that Patterico stayed on the story with an intense focus long after I forgot all about it:
I was very interested in these two pieces of information, because I knew that Mike Stack had been SWATted on June 23, 2011. I knew that the caller from Mike Stack’s June 23, 2011 SWATting had been (incorrectly) described by the police as having a British accent. And I knew that some suspected that a woman in Boston named Jennifer George was behind some of the fakery that could be related to Mike Stack’s SWATting — and that she had accused Lee [Stranahan] of threatening her.
Read the rest. Damn, I was so stupid.
UPDATE: Lying Felon Brett Kimberlin Scores a Draw in Maryland Hearing
Posted on | June 30, 2012 | 23 Comments
Brett Kimberlin could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison
“[I]n 1981, Kimberlin . . . was finally convicted of a week-long bombing spree . . . in which eight separate bombs caused extensive property damage, destroyed a police cruiser, and severely maimed a man, which eventually led to the man’s suicide.”
— Mandy Nagy (“Liberty Chick”), Oct. 11, 2010
“If someone had told me, don’t say anything about Lillian Hellman because she’ll sue you, it wouldn’t have stopped me. It might have spurred me on.”
— Mary McCarthy, 1988
“Never doubt that God answers prayer.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, May 21, 2012
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Aaron Walker reports that a Maryland district court judge on Friday granted convicted felon Brett Kimberlin’s petition for a peace order against Virginia resident John Norton. The judge also granted Norton’s petition for a peace order against Kimberlin.
Walker argues that neither peace order should have been granted, but it seems to me that Norton’s counter-complaint — a defensive measure, to protect himself against workplace harassment by Kimberlin — was entirely legitimate. Keep in mind that on May 21, Kimberlin contacted my wife’s workplace, accused me of having “harassed” him and, in doing so, made clear that he knew where I lived.
So if anyone on Kimberlin’s enemies list asks for legal protection against his known pattern of intimidation, certainly I can understand.
According to Norton’s peace-order petition, all he did was to drive on the road where Kimberlin lives — a through route, connecting Maryland State Highway 190 (River Road) with Maryland State Highway 191 (Bradley Boulevard), which D.C.-area commuters sometimes use as an alternate route to avoid congestion on the Beltway (I-495).
Kimberlin’s peace-order petition claimed that Norton was “lurking,” although it must be remembered that Brett Kimberlin is not merely a convicted terrorist bomber, but also a convicted perjurer (for lying under oath to a federal grand jury in 1973).
In fact, Kimberlin is so notoriously dishonest that liberal journalist Mark Singer, who was initially sympathetic to Kimberlin’s bogus claims of being a “political prisoner,” wrote a 1996 book (Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin) that portrayed him as a “top-flight con man,” as a reviewer for Publisher’s Weekly said.
Kimberlin has never admitted guilt for the federal felonies for which he was convicted in 1981, including the bomb blast that horribly maimed Carl DeLong. His refusal to confess his bloody crimes, despite the conclusive evidence against him — which involved, among other things, a brand of explosive known as Tovex — has turned Kimberlin’s entire existence into a massive mountain of lies, piled sky-high atop the fundamental lie of his bogus claims of innocence.
Anything that Kimberlin says must be presumed false.
To borrow Mary McCarthy’s famous denunciation of Lilian Hellman: Every word Kimberlin writes is a lie, including “and” and “the.”
So when Brett Kimberlin accused John Norton of “lurking,” it was not in the least bit surprising to see Norton’s response: “I was shocked to read the false claims made by Mr. Kimberlin.”
Brett Kimberlin lying in official court documents? You don’t say!
That’s why Jimmie Bise Jr. calls him “Lying Felon Brett Kimberlin.”
Kimberlin’s Modus Operandi
While the law may permit a convicted perjurer’s lies to be accepted as evidence in Maryland courts — legal scholars tell me otherwise, even though some Montgomery County judges treat Kimberlin as if he were capable of telling the truth — there is nothing than can lawfully prevent anyone from stating the honest facts about Brett Kimberlin, namely that he is a vicious liar with the blood of innocents on his hands.
Any reasonable person examining the facts about Kimberlin’s infamous history would be stunned to discover that law-abiding citizens are being hauled into court based on the word of a man once convicted of blowing up a police car. This was the act of a drug smuggler who boasted of his contempt for law enforcement and who, according to investigators, conspired from his jail cell to murder a federal prosecutor and one of the witnesses against him:
Brett C. Kimberlin schemed to elude justice with a series of bizarre plots designed to murder, maim and rob his enemies, create havoc . . . and discredit the chief government prosecutor. . . .
Kimberlin asked another inmate in the Marion County Jail to arrange for the murder of Bernard L. (Buddy) Pylitt, the former first assistant U.S. attorney who coordinated his prosecution.
The offer contained a list of 10 names, including a potential prosecution witness, Robert Scott Bixler.
It is genuinely amazing to think that anyone could read that 1981 article by Indianapolis Star reporter Joe Gelarden — please print it out and read the whole thing — without recognizing that Kimberlin’s characteristic modus operandi has scarcely changed in the past 30 years.
By accusing others of wrongdoing, Kimberlin seeks to evade responsibility for his own wrongdoing. What I’ve called the “accuse the accusers” strategy — which is also witnessed in the actions of Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser — looks very much like obstruction of justice.
Of course, I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a detective or a cop or an FBI agent. I’m just a reporter trying to cover a story, and the big mystery at the heart of this story is: Why do Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser keep acting like they are trying to hide something?
Why did Kimberlin sue Seth Allen? Why did Kimberlin threaten to sue Patrick Frey and Mandy Nagy? What was the purpose of Rauhauser’s collaboration with the hacker group Anonymous on behalf of Kimberlin’s 501(c) non-profit Velvet Revolution? Why did Rauhauser use the alias “Gaped Crusader” to harass Frey and Frey’s wife? Why would Rauhauser be obsessed with “persona management,” a deceptive means of concealing online identities? When did Kimberlin put Rauhauser on his payroll, and for what purpose? Why did Rauhauser send a weird document to the FBI and other law enforcement officials, accusing a number of people including Andrew Breitbart of complicity in a strange conspiracy? Why did Rauhauser suddenly start blogging obsessively Patrick Frey shortly after Frey was SWATted at his Los Angeles home? Why has Kimberlin waged a months-long campaign of harassment against Aaron Walker? Why does Rauhauser keep showing up at Kimberlin’s court hearings? Is there any truth to Rauhauser’s repeated assertions of his cozy relationship with the FBI?
I don’t claim to have the answers to any of those questions, but it is small wonder that many people familiar with the facts of this story would like some answers. There may be innocent explanations for all this.
Maybe Brett Kimberlin is just embarrassed to be reminded that his strange interest in a pre-teen girl made him a suspect in the contract murder of the girl’s grandmother, Julia Scyphers, a crime that has never been officially solved because the only eyewitness died after identifying a member of Kimberlin’s drug-smuggling gang as the trigger man.
Maybe all the hinky online behavior by Neal Rauhauser during the past year is just a typical manifestation of a warped personality who reportedly engaged in behavior “disturbing enough to result in a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation” that found Rauhauser to be “deeply disturbed,” even “sociopathic.”
Maybe there is no reason to suspect that Rauhauser’s bizarre accusations against Patrick Frey are part of a deliberate effort to obstruct the investigation of the SWATtings of Frey and Mike Stack. Maybe all that weird stuff about “a very big dog from the Anonymous pen” helping Velvet Revolution against “Breitbart associates” was just standard-issue Rauhauser crazytalk, rather than the description of a conspiracy against Neal’s enemies sponsored by Kimberlin’s non-profit.
‘Accuse the Accusers’: How It Works
Given the possibility of innocent explanations for all these things, then, there is no need to allege any specific criminal activity that Rauhauser and Kimberlin are attempting to cover up. We can merely state, for example, that on May 24, Rauhauser sent an e-mail to Mike Stack, CC’d to California attorney Jay Leiderman, urging Stack to file a lawsuit against Frey so that Frey “could be compelled to settle for $10K-$20K just to avoid discovery.”
If you know that Rauhauser was named among those Frey suspects of complicity in his SWATting, doesn’t that e-mail look like an attempt to obstruct justice by using one SWATting victim (Stack) to help discredit another (Frey)? Accuse the accusers, you see.
Rauhauser clearly hoped that slanderous May 24 e-mail — in which, among other things, he claims that being “connected with Robert Stacy McCain” could make someone “an accessory in a federal hate crimes investigation” — would remain a secret. By the same token, Rauhauser also obviously hoped to keep secret other e-mails in which he claimed that Mike Stack, Seth Allen, Aaron Walker, Ron Brynaert and Michelle Lessick all have “psych[iatric] disabilities” or “mental difficulties.”
Again: Accuse the accusers — Rauhauser persistently endeavors to discredit anyone who might accuse him of wrongdoing, in the same way that Kimberlin has done by filing legal actions against Seth Allen, Aaron Walker and others. Kimberlin’s peace-order complaint against John Norton is part of this strategy: “Your honor, this man drove past my house and wrote about it on the Internet — I’m the victim of a conspiracy!” Indeed, this is what Kimberlin claimed:
“Mr. Norton clearly has a relationship with Mr. Allen and Mr. Walker, and I firmly believe that Mr. Norton is or was conspiring with Aaron Walker or his client Seth Allen, or others acting on behalf of Aaron Walker, to stalk or harass me and place me and my family in fear.”
On the one hand, this is insane. On the other hand, Kimberlin then turned around and cited his own insane claim of an Allen-Walker-Norton conspiracy as evidence in his June 22 filing against Walker:
On June 15, 2012, Petitioner found a stalker lurking outside his home taking pictures. Petitioner called 911 and the police identified the man as John Firman Norton, and he lives in Fairfax, Virginia, very close to Mr. Walker’s home.
Mr. Walker’s client, Seth Allen, posted at least one of the pictures taken by Mr. Norton on a blog. Exhibit B. On June 22, 2012, Petitioner filed for a Peace Order against Mr. Norton.
So you see how Kimberlin makes spurious charges against Norton, then employs those charges as part of his effort to discredit Walker. Remember that in October 2010, when Kimberlin threatened to sue Patrick Frey, he accused Frey of conspiring with Seth “Socrates” Allen:
I have just sued Socrates on which you rely for cyber stalking, defamation, libel, violation of privacy and interference with business. Socrates has been banned from many sites and forums for stalking many people including me. He is under criminal investigation for cyber bullying and cyber stalking. By corresponding with him and relying on his defamatory posts, you are conspiring with him and are just as liable as he.
Most of the things you write about in your post are false. If you have not removed the defamatory piece within 24 hours, I will proceed with legal action against you and will serve notice on your service provider that you are violating your terms of service by engaging in false, defamatory and abusive postings.
In other words: “Seth Allen is a liar, and I have sued him. I will now sue you for conspiring with Allen to repeat his lies, and I’ll also get your blog shut down for a violation of terms of service.”
Questions Accumulate, Answers Await
Kimberlin uses his own civil action against Allen as evidence to discredit Allen, thus to discourage Frey (or anyone else) from relying on Allen’s work. So when we see Kimberlin attempting to employ spurious legal complaints to discredit Aaron Walker, we know that eventually Kimberlin will accuse others of criminal wrongdoing because of their relationship (real or alleged) with Walker.
Accuse the accusers — and then use your own accusations as “evidence”!
Are we therefore to think it a mere coincidence when Mike Stack gets an e-mail from Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser, saying that Stack has made statements “based on information he has received from people around John Patrick Frey,” some of whom are also “connected to Robert Stacy McCain,” making reference to a “federal hate crimes investigation” (!) and telling attorney Jay Leiderman that Stack “is willing to talk to the FBI to get at these guys for what they have done to him”?
Did Brett Kimberlin — whom Rauhauser has described as his “client” — authorize Rauhauser to write that e-mail? Is this part of a deliberate effort by Kimberlin and Rauhauser to discredit those on their enemies list? And given that there is supposed to be an ongoing federal investigation of the SWATtings of Stack, Frey and others (most recently including Aaron Walker), couldn’t these actions be construed as obstruction of justice?
Such questions proliferate as I continue reporting this story. Every time Brett Kimberlin goes to court against his enemies, he creates more news for me to cover, and every time Kimberlin goes to court, it seems he brings along Neal Rauhauser as part of his entourage. Their evident inseparability would seem to lend credence to the belief that Rauhauser is a partner in everything Kimberlin does, and vice-versa.
Questions have been accumulating, and the problem is that neither Kimberlin nor Rauhauser has been compelled to answer these questions.
Yet.
Just wait, however. This story is a long way from over.
– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown
Update (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!
- May 17: Is Democrat Operative Neal Rauhauser an ‘Associate’ of Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin? (And Why It Matters)
- May 17: Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Received $70,000 From Tides Foundation, $10,000 From Streisand, $20,000 from John Kerry’s Wife
- May 18: Who Warned Us About Brett Kimberlin?
- May 19: Domestic Terrorist Now Using ‘Lawfare’? Convicted Felon Kimberlin’s 501(c)3 Raised $1.8 Million in Six Years UPDATE: ‘Convicted of Perjury’
- May 20: Deadline Loometh, and the Raven Is Croaking Brett Kimberlin’s Name
- May 20: ‘Other Computer Savvy Activists’
- May 21: Never Doubt That God Answers Prayer
- May 22: Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland
- May 23: ‘He Has No F–king Soul’
- May 24: Lying Felon Can’t Stop Lying
- May 25: KimberlinFiles.org
- May 26: Kimberlin v. Walker Hearing Scheduled: 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Rockville, Maryland
- May 27: Brett Kimberlin’s Heiress Aunt Helping Fund His Tax-Exempt Harassment
- May 27: ERICK ERICKSON GETS SWATTED
- May 28: Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again
- May 29: Matthew Vadum Talks Brett Kimberlin
- May 29: REPORT: Aaron Walker Arrested After Maryland Hearing on Kimberlin Case UPDATE: Walker Now Released
- May 31: Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration
- June 1: Radicals Justify Their Evil by Invoking Their Presumed Moral Superiority
- June 2: When Neal Rauhauser Complained About ‘Menacing’ and ‘Cyberstalking’
- June 3: The Profoundly Dishonest Brett Kimberlin
- June 3: Raw Story Disavows Ties to Kimberlin
- June 3: Inside Neal Rauhauser’s Twisted Mind
- June 4: ‘A Faint Whiff of Vigilante Hysteria’: Weinergate’s Kimberlin Connection
- June 5: Ali Akbar Says, ‘World War Three’
- June 5: Fear and Loathing on Capitol Hill: The GOP Caucus Is Decadent and Depraved
- June 6: Walker Files Appeal in Kimberlin Case; Ali Akbar Says: ‘We’re Not Stopping.’
- June 6: Sen. Saxby Chambliss Requests DOJ Investigate SWATting
- June 7: CNN Gets Scooped on Its Own Story UPDATE: ACLJ Joins the Fight!
- June 8: NATIONAL DAY OF BLOGGER SILENCE UPDATE: Remember Seth Allen
- June 8: @AceOfSpadesHQ BREAKS SILENCE: #BrettKimberlin’s Escalating Threat
- June 10: Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, and Their Transparent Empire of Lies UPDATE: ‘Anonymous’ Connection
- June 11: Florida Rep. Sandy Adams Leads 85 House Republicans in ‘SWATting’ Letter
- June 11: #BrettKimberlin Says He Was ‘SWATted’; Why Do Maryland Cops Say Otherwise?
- June 11: HUGE! Neal Rauhauser’s Vicious Lies Exposed by Yet Another Leaked E-Mail
- June 12: ‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues
- June 13: A High Time on the Low Road: Smears Target Brett Kimberlin’s Enemies List UPDATE: SWATting Supect ID’d?
- June 13: Time to Ask: What Did Brett Kimberlin Know and When Did He Know It?
- June 14: Patterico: ‘Certain Big Media Reporters Are Scared to Write About Kimberlin’
- June 14: ‘Real Reporter’ @NYT_JenPreston vs. Blogger @Prepostericity (Seth Allen)
- June 14: Neal Rauhauser’s Online Slander Factory
- June 15: Neal Rauhauser’s Game Plan Involving Velvet Revolution and Anonymous
- June 16: Team Kimberlin’s Busted Hustle Now Beginning to Unravel Rapidly UPDATE: Perhaps Not a Coincidence
- June 17: ‘Scrubbed’ Writings Show Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser’s Obsessions
- June 18: The Kimberlin Files: Ali Akbar, the Fight for Liberty and … a Disturbing Silence
- June 19: Neal Rauhauser’s Criminal Complaint Against Blogger Greg W. Howard
- June 19: Neal Rauhauser: Internet Super-Spy!
- June 20: ‘Persona Management’ for Wackjobs: Rauhauser’s Methods of Deception
- June 21: Recording: Leader of Anti-Limbaugh Effort Brags About Obama Campaign Ties
- June 21: ‘Iowa Boy,’ ‘Stranded Wind’ and the Sadistic Personality of Neal Rauhauser
- June 22: E-Mails Expose MSNBC Host’s Involvement in #StopRush Boycott
- June 22: BREAKING: Motion Filed Seeking Federal Injunction on Behalf of Blogger
- June 23: Imani Gandy, #StopRush and Neal Rauhauser: Confirmation and Credibility
- June 23: Neal Rauhauser’s Bizarre Suspicions, and Profiling the (Hypothetical) ‘UnSub’
- June 24: The Silence of Mark Singer; Also: Kimberlin v. Walker Hearing Monday
- June 25: UPDATED: Aaron Walker Granted Emergency Order in Maryland Hearing, Calls Ruling ‘Important Victory’
- June 25: Aaron Walker SWATted?
- June 26: Conspiracy Theorist ‘Qritiq’ Conspires Against Neal Rauhauser’s Targets
- June 26: #TCOT #BrettKimberlin #SWATting Important Event 9:30 p.m. ET Tonight!
- June 27: Professor Glenn ‘Exhibit E’ Reynolds
- June 27: ‘The Gaped Crusader’: Brett Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser Stalked and Taunted SWATting Victim Patrick Frey
- June 29: Convicted Perjurer Brett Kimberlin Has 8:30 a.m. Hearing in Maryland Today
World’s Youngest Blogger, Wheels Edition
Posted on | June 30, 2012 | 10 Comments
by Smitty
Mataconis: Less Guano, Please
Posted on | June 30, 2012 | 49 Comments
by Smitty
Mataconis takes Podhoretz to task for asserting that the Chief Justice contradicted himself by discussing ObamaCare in terms of the Anti-Injunction Act for purposes of standing, and then turning around and finding ObamaCare Constitutional as an exercise of tax power.
Clearly, Roberts is discussion two very distinct issues in these different section of the opinion. In the first, he is dealing with the discrete question of whether or not the PPACA mandate penalty qualifies as the kind of tax contemplated by the Anti-Injunction Act such that challenges would have to wait until at least 2015 to be filed in a Federal Court. In other words, it was purely a question of whether the Plaintiffs in the case had standing to challenge law at this time. The case law surrounding this issue tends to be complicated, but it was clear at the end of oral argument that none of the justices bought that argument.
Can we please cut through all the legal guano here, Doug? Get a piece of paper and draw a timeline. How, pray tell, if ObamaCare is magically discovered a tax, is it being argued before the SCOTUS three years ahead of completion of its infernal gestation?
A few points:
- The decision is what it is. What this post is not is an attempt to re-jigger the past. The past, as the taxation nature of ObamaCare would be if anything like consistent logic obtained, will not budge. This is what we have, and calls for Roberts’ head on a silver charger are more than a little overblown.
- Having SCOTUS decisions turn into convoluted crayon duels (like ObamaCare itself) is no help. The SCOTUS works for the We the People. There is no excuse for complicating the situation unnecessarily. If the legal stylings have become so Byzantine that the typical college student cannot follow them, then perhaps the fault is with the legal stylings, and not the audience.
- Argumentum ad verecundiam is unimpressive. This is America. Respect, like contempt, is an earned quantity. Someone who yells “Are you a lawyer?” as a twit did at Seton Motley on Thursday the 28th, as though a law degree is a prerequisite for public speaking, earns the contempt.
- What’s crucial, and therefore little-discussed, is the economics. Sure, legal arguments. Fine, political speechifying. From whence cometh the loot to drive it all? As Walter Scott noted, “Be it better, be it worse, be ruled by him that has the purse.” The simple budgetary fact that the 57 State horses are being pulled by the Federal Reserve cart will become painful Real Soon Now. But that’s OK: we take honest budgeting as seriously as simple, coherent reasoning.
- Libertas et Memoria points out that David Brooks likes the ObamaCare decision, which I think they called an OSCVLVM MORTIS (“kiss of deat”) in the old days.
As a lawyer of some note once said:
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
After that, I can’t decide whether (a) to break into a paraphrase of the dog lifting the leg to opine on the ObamaCare ruling, or (b) some jape about BHO looking at the dog and saying: “Breakfast!”
Exit question: Did Scott Adams intend a vague ObamaCare reference in today’s Dilbert?
Probably not.
Update: linked at WyBlog.
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