The Other McCain

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

Yes, Dan Riehl: Slavery. To Materialism!

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Dan Riehl brings some dainty new footwear to the discussion. However, we need to dig a little deeper here. The message may not be limited to simple 19thcentury bondage. No.

Does Dan Riehl secretly dream of this sort of restraint?

Chattel slavery? Worse--possessions!

As Lawrence O’Donnell (my intellectual guide) points out, we’re all socialists now:
This new line of footwear clearly underscores the American enslavement to possessions, bling, and physical nonsense. We must rightly reject this bourgeois notion of private property! Let the shackles come off, and let there be community footwear! From each according to his mobility, to each according to his feet!

For too long, this weird combination of Imelda Marcos, sports, and melted crayons has gripped the American foot. It is time American toes to join in liberty, equality, and fraternity: “LACES OF THE AMERICAN SHOE UNTIE!”

Category: Dan Riehl, Farce

The Kimberlin Files: Ali Akbar, the Fight for Liberty and … a Disturbing Silence

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 71 Comments


 

“If Rauhauser and Kimberlin aren’t under investigation by the FBI yet, why not?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 4, 2011

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
During the Right Online conference, National Bloggers Club president Ali Akbar was interviewed by Christina Corbin of Fox News:

“What they’re clearly trying to do is dampen down free speech, but it goes beyond that — it’s putting people’s physical safety in jeopardy,” said Ali Akbar, who heads a group called the National Bloggers Club made up of conservative online writers.
Akbar told FoxNews.com that he believes he is a target after he claims his mother’s home address in Texas was posted on various Internet sites to “incite someone crazy on the fringe left to do something absolutely awful to one of us for what we’re talking about.”

(Via Memeorandum.) There is a limit to what can be accomplished by defensive measures to protect against such dangerous intimidation tactics. We have seen in the cases of Seth Allen, Mike Stack, Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Aaron Walker that courts and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly failed to take appropriate action against the thugs who seek to stifle First Amendment freedoms. Indeed, in the May 29 Maryland hearing that exemplified the bizarre success of Brett Kimberlin’s abusive “lawfare” tactics, Aaron Walker was arrested — ! — on the basis of dishonest claims made by Kimberlin who, among other things, is a convicted perjurer.

Mike Stack and Patterico were both SWATted nearly a year ago, and yet no arrests have been made in those cases. Patterico demonstrates that he was being harassed on Twitter in September 2011 by Neal Rauhauser’s associates who made specific references to SWATting before Patterico had ever made public mention of having been SWATted.

The FBI knows all about this, and yet they refuse to act.

Patterico has clearly identified those whom he suspects of complicity. Has the FBI inquired with Twitter to find out who was behind the “LulzShack” handle in August 2011? Or who was behind the “Stormpedo” Twitter handle in September 2011?

We are at the point of the story where, if this was a TV crime drama, the detectives would have the suspects locked in a room, confronting them with the evidence and interrogating them for 14 consecutive hours until they cracked.

Is the FBI incompetent? Or — I hesitate to suggest this — has the Justice Department become so corrupted that even the FBI’s hard-won reputation for integrity has been compromised?

This is why Neal Rauhauser’s repeated boastings about his contacts in the FBI disturb me. We know that Rauhauser is a liar and a braggart, but what if he’s actually telling the truth about his cozy relationship with law enforcement? What if the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have actually bought into Rauhauser’s deceptions?

Perish the thought. I have spoken to at least three people who say they have talked to the FBI about what is, supposedly, an ongoing investigation of these matters. These people tell me to be patient, and assure me that the FBI is doing their best. But if they’re doing their best, how to explain the lack of action?  Read more

Category: Shoe Leather Fund, The Kimberlin Files

LIVE AT FIVE – 06.18.12

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Islamist Morsi Claims Victory In Egypt

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi

Meanwhile, the Army’s generals make it clear where the power lies in Egypt

New Democracy Party Wins Narrow Victory In Greece
Can they patch together a pro-bailout coalition?

Senator Lieberman Calls For Special Counsel In Leaks Case
Special counsel would avoid conflicts of interest



POLITICS
Silent March Against Stop & Frisk Tactics Ends In Violence

Woman arrested by NYC police after march gets violent

Occupods spur clashes with police, nine arrested

Romney, Boehner Show United Front Against Obama In Ohio

Supreme Court’s Obamacare Decision Won’t Stop Push To Control Health Costs

Ron Paul Wins Majority Of Iowa’s Delegates

New AFSCME Chief To Face War Over Benefits

Romney Questions The Timing Of Obama’s Deportation Halt

Analysts Gauge Early Impact Of California’s “Jungle” Primaries

Santorum Turns Thumbs Down On Possible Romney Administration Job

Air Force X-37 Space Vehicle Comes Home After 469 Days In Orbit



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Nears $85 As Greece Concerns Ease; NYMEX $84.83, Brent $98.47
Asian Stocks Rally On Greece Election News
PRC Home Prices Decline, Rate Of Decline Accelerates
The Great German Energy Experiment
Market Moving Financial Journalist Dan Dorfman Dies, 82
Valve Appoints In-House Video Game Economist
Microsoft, B&N To Announce Tablet With XBox Live Streaming
Apple & Google Go Head-To-Head Over Mobile Maps
Original Apple I Sells For $375,000
Mozilla Takes Aim At iPad Browser Market With “Junior” Prototype
Torvalds Gives Nvidia The Finger Over Lack Of Linux Support
Leaked Documents Reveal Microsoft’s Next XBox
Ethiopia Clamps Down On Skype, TOR Network



SPORTS
Heat Win Game Three After Thunder Blunders Late

Chris Bosh dunks against the Thunder

Sloppy play in second half dooms OKC to 91-85 loss

Ortiz, Kalish Push Red Sox Past Cubs

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Storms To Victory At MIS, Ending Long Drought

Astros Bullpen Fails After Keuchel’s Strong Debut

Fish Offensive Funk Continues, Rays Win 3-0

Braun’s Bat Helps Brewers Beat Twins 6-2

Damn Yankees: Zimmerman’s Struggles Continue As Yanks Sweep Nats With 4-1 Win



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rodney King Dead At 47

Rodney King pleads with LA rioters to end the violence: "Can't we all just get along?"


TMZ Reports He Was Toking & Drinking Before Drowning

Tone Loc Collapses On Stage

Jack Osbourne Diagnosed With MS


Cops To Bust Drake For Chucking Bottle At Chris Brown In Bar Brawl?

Dennis Quaid NOT Cited For DUI After Traffic Stop
This qualifies as news in Hollywood

Selena Gomez On Playing Anastasia In “Fifty Shades Of Grey”: “It Would Be Too Much”

Toronto Stage Collapse Kills Man Ahead Of Radiohead Concert

Lohan Not The Only One On “Liz & Dick” Worked To Exhaustion



FOREIGNERS
Saudi Arabia Buries Crown Prince Nayef
Sigh Of Relief At G-20 Summit Over Greek Election Results
IDF, Terrorists Clash Along Egypt Border; One Dead
Hollande’s Socialists Win Majority In French Parliament
Russian “Reset” Faces Test As Meetings Loom On Iran, Syria
Nigeria Church Bombings Kill 19, Spark Reprisals
Suu Kyi Wins Pop Star Reception In Europe
Nothing Grand In Rio
Zookeeper Killed By Wolfpack At Swedish Zoo
Israel Begins Deporting Illegal Immigrants Back To Africa



BLOGS & STUFF
Twitchy: Plouffe Claims “This Wasn’t A Political Move”
iOwnTheWorld: “I Am Not A Crook”
PJ Tatler: Arizona Sheriff Enforces Law, Press Gets Butthurt
Hot Air: Greek Election Open Thread
Gateway Pundit: President Blathers Something About Jobs, Heads Out For 100th Round Of Golf
Legal Insurrection: Progressive Harvard Law Prof Says Obama Must Be Defeated
Power Line: Politico Whines About Josh Mandel’s “Outside Cash”
Jihad Watch: Salafi Group In Egypt Warns That Your Salad Could Make You An Infidel, Declares Tomatoes Haram
Protein Wisdom: Maraniss Says, “The Book Belongs In The Category Of Literature And Memoir, Not History And Autobiography”
Raleigh News & Observer: Beau Biden Takes Shot At Mitt Romney, Hits Bev Perdue
An Ex-Con’s View: The Darkness
The Hope For America: George Will On His Game (Video)

Category: Live at Five

Rule 5 Sunday: Just Go Away

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 13 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Well, here we are again, and I am obliged to remind the Loyal Readers that while most of the links to follow are quite artistic and tasteful, others are eminently Not Safe For Work. Clicking on the latter could lead to a serious pollution of your precious bodily fluids, among other unfortunate eventualities. On with the linkagery!


Randy’s Roundtable leads off this week with Sunny Leone, while Reaganite Republican indulges in a little nostalgia with Rufus and Chaka Khan. Laughing Conservative this week features Jo Gasson, the POH Diaries roll with Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games, and Fishersville Mike comes up with Julianne Hough from Rock of Ages. Three Beers Later checks in with Kate Upton’s Greatest Hits and the Moonshine Bandits.


A View From The Beach has some Katee Sackoff, cave girls, women’s soccer, a joke from Esquire, an update on the Crystal Harris/Hugh Hefner thing, and semi-nude Canadian protesters.


Soylent Green’s Monday Motivationer is Elle, Tuesday Titillation is provided by Shera Bechard, followed by some window dressing for Wednesday, Nikky Case for the evening awesome, Tiffany Crystal, Corset Friday, and some Estella Warren. Also, Addison!


El Opinador Compulsivo kicks off with the extremely hot Nives Celsius, girls from the Euro Soccer Cup, Kate Upton, sexy Colombian dancers, vintage babe Ornella Muti, The Naughty Dozen, and somewhat recursively, How To Eat A Banana.


Proof Positive offers Elena Gheorghe, vintage babe Jan Sterling, and some Sex in Advertising that just might get a rise out of you. At the Camp of the Saints, it’s Brooke Lee Adams, the much-missed Rule 5 News, Sonja Abrahamsson, and Kate Sajur. Dustbury brings us Fan Bingbing and some country music chanteuse you may have heard of.
😉


This week’s DaleyBabes from the Daley Gator include Leah Dizon (and a Rule 5 tour), Linda Cardellini, Sheena Easton, Rocio Guirao Diaz, Sarah Shahi, Odalys Garcia, and Bipasha Basu.


Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Next week’s links will be due in the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox by Saturday, June 23.

Category: Rule 5

Stand Your Bus On Me

Posted on | June 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

This is a great parody of the Ben E. King classic, as former intelligence associates come to grips with the sad reality that, when the chips are down, Barack is somewhere else, fundraising, and under the bus they go:

via Yid With Lid

Category: Barack Obama, Election, humor, Video

Hey, Greece: Just Remember, Austrian Economics Don’t Work

Posted on | June 17, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

It looks as though the Greek election is another exercise in playing soccer on a long street with a can, kicking that can down another block.

The collapse of the Eurozone has become like the decline of the Warsaw Pact, only more complex and prolonged. Pro-austerity forces have won the latest election in Greece – sort of. Official projections show centre-Right New Democracy slightly ahead of radical socialist Syriza, which gives New Democracy an advantage in parliamentary seats. Syriza has conceded the election. However, reports say that New Democracy’s likely coalition partner, the austerity-minded centre-left Pasok, is unwilling to serve in a government that doesn’t give some role to Syriza. Syriza says no to a “grand coalition,” which means Pasok may be bluffing its way out of having to share the burden of austerity with New Democracy. Talks will begin and New Democracy has three days to form a new government. So the Euro is safe until the next election – in six weeks time?

Stanley veers off target in the conclusion:

Like communism, the Euro was sold to the poor of Europe as a magic bullet that would bring instant and lasting economic growth. One certainly can’t blame them for buying the propaganda, especially considering that several prominent Britons did, too.

Also, many prominent Britons did not. Thus, it may be time for a broad reverse psychology tactic. Tell the Greeks that what they ought to pursue is completely unworkable. Make them curious about common sense. Let them stumble upon it and think workable policies are their own idea. Can’t go any more wrong than the rest of the silliness over there.

Category: Greece

‘Scrubbed’ Writings Show Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser’s Obsessions

Posted on | June 17, 2012 | 56 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Earlier this year, Neal Rauhauser “scrubbed” from the Internet several of his online writings in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence that he has been cyberstalking and harassing his enemies, including the late Andrew Breitbart, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and the group of Tea Party activists who exposed Rauhauser’s role in the 2010 “TwitterGate” scandal.

Cached versions of Rauhauser’s deleted posts were preserved by some of the conservatives he targeted, and show Rauhauser’s fetish for secrecy and his obsession with his various enemies. For example, on March 14, Rauhauser published a post on his blog (nealrauhauser.wordpress.com) entitled “Playing Detective,” in which he described his attempt to find the real identity of a Tea Party activist who uses the Twitter handle @ZapEm. She produced on online video documenting evidence that Rauhauser organized the “beandogs” who harassed conservative Twitter users in 2010.

“Someone with some paid services I don’t have gave me the name of a couple in New Jersey,” Rauhauser wrote, describing his attempts to locate @ZapEm (see complete post below). “I wrote a nice note to the Morristown [i.e., New Jersey] Tea Party leadership, hoping that they may have had their fill of her antics. . . . Then I called the chief of police in Morristown and we spent a few minutes on the phone.”

In follow-up posts the next day, Rauhauser wrote that ZapEm is “mentally ill” from schizophrenia and has a “behavior disorder,” even as he described his own clearly obsessive search for the woman’s real identity. He described being contacted by a New Jersey Democrat with information potentially identifying the targeted woman, announced plans to hire a private detective to find her in New Jersey, and wrote that he had “started reaching out to Muslim attorneys in the area.”

Rauhauser, who previously worked as a consultant for Democratic politicians, has in the past year joined forces with Brett Kimberlin’s tax-exempt 501(c) activist group Velvet Revolution, and also has ties to the “Occupy” movement and the “Anonymous” computer hacking conspiracy. Kimberlin made headlines in the past month for his harassment of bloggers who have written about his criminal past as Indiana’s notorious “Speedway Bomber.” Last month, blogger Aaron Walker was arrested after a Maryland hearing about Kimberlin’s complaint against Walker’s writings.

Several of the posts deleted from Rauhauser’s blog (but preserved in cache form) relate to his penchant for maintaining secrecy in his online activities. In a March post entitled, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” Rauhauser described how to “truly, deeply hide” ownership of Web sites “from a server you control without revealing its location to others.” In other March postings, Rauhauser claimed to have been targeted by a “a violent, Islamophobic nativist hate group” and wrote about “various stuff I’ve done to confuse those intent on finding and harming me.” 

One undated article by Rauhauser (uploaded at Scribd.com and later deleted) is entitled “Geolocation Lulz” and describes methods by which Rauhauser masks his IP address and location while posting comments on Web sites to “goad” enemies. Another article by Rauhauser dealt with “persona management,” i.e., protecting secret online aliases, and he also wrote about offering three classes to teach his Internet strategies: “Security & Anonymity,” “Grassroots Intel Analyst,” and “Counter Intel/Counter Troll.”

Recently published e-mails show Rauhauser soliciting a California attorney, Jay Leiderman, to assist New Jersey conservative activist Mike Stack in filing a nuisance lawsuit against Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Patrick Frey. Both Stack and Frey were victims of so-called “SWATting,” a dangerous hoax in which calls to 911 emergency numbers are used to dispatch police to the target’s home with the false accusation that the target has committed a violent crime.

At his Patterico site, Frey published an account of his SWATting, and has mentioned that one anonymous Twitter account (“LulzShack”) exhibited inside knowledge of that 2011 incident. Stack was SWATted after he helped expose Rep. Anthony Weiner’s cybersex scandal. Patterico wrote on May 25:

As Andrew Breitbart noted, this happened to two people within the course of a single week: a man in New Jersey and myself. Both of us had had contact with Andrew Breitbart. Both of us were writing about the same story. And both of us received email threats days before we were swatted. The threat to me said, in part: “Please think about your family. This story is not worth it. I can assure you that.” . . .
Writing at Daily Kos, Rauhauser suggests I should be harassed online.
Three days after I was swatted, Rauhauser wrote a post titled “Patterico’s Penalization” that made bizarre accusations about me, and accused me of working with a “cyberstalker” named Seth Allen — a blogger who had criticized Brett Kimberlin so tenaciously that Kimberlin (frivolously) sued Allen for defamation.

In multiple postings at Daily Kos under his “Stranded Wind” alias, Rauhauser wrote obsessively about his theories that the so-called WeinerGate scandal was a hoax, which Rauhauser implied had been orchestrated by Frey.

Another obsessive interest of Rauhauser’s was O’Keefe, whose undercover video “sting” of the community organizing group ACORN launched Breitbart’s “Big Government” site in 2009. In posts that Rauhauser scrubbed from his blog, he describes his communications with Nadia Naffe, who admits having stolen O’Keefe’s e-mails, and who made headlines earlier this year by falsely accusing O’Keefe of sexual assault. Earlier this week, in an e-mail sent to blogger Paul Lemmen, Rauhauser claimed that he was working with the New Hampshire attorney general’s office in an effort to prosecute O’Keefe for a video “sting” operation about voter fraud in that state. Rauhauser said he had “hand carried a letter from [a New Hampshire associate attorney general] into an injunction hearing in New Jersey” involving Naffe and O’Keefe.

A September 2011 e-mail from Rauhauser to leaders of the “Occupy Boston” protests shows that Rauhauser was representing himself as an agent of Kimberlin’s Velvet Revolution group, and that Rauhauser was acquainted with “Anonymous” hacker Gregg Housh. Last year, Housh’s colleague Barrett Brown announced that they had signed a book deal (reportedly for a “six figure” advance payment) to write about the activities of “Anonymous.” Brown had become a public spokesman for the computer hacking group, and was reportedly raided by the FBI earlier this year when charges were filed against the so-called “LulzSec” cell of Anonymous.

In a comment posted at a progressive blog in October 2011, Rauhauser described being contacted by a “very big dog from the Anonymous pen” who agreed to assist Velvet Revolution in an apparent plan to attack enemies of Rauhauser and Kimberlin.

Rauhauser’s tendency to boast — he frequently writes about his contacts with law enforcement and congressional staffers — and his demonstrable habits of deception make it difficult to take any of his claims at face value. In the sampling of Rauhauser’s writings that I have appended below, he makes a number of accusations of criminal wrongdoing against various individuals, attributing to these persons malicious intent. Readers are cautioned that many of Rauhauser’s claims about his chosen “enemies” are probably false, and may constitute libel. In republishing them here, I disavow any intent to endorse the claims made by Rauhauser and furthermore note that Rauhauser is a public figure who, by attempting to hide his potentially libelous writings by deleting them from his site, has waived whatever copyright claims might otherwise have prevented their republication under “fair use” doctrine.

– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

 

* * * * * * *
** ARTICLES BY NEAL RAUHAUSER **

Playing Detective

March 14, 2012
I have a bit of quite time the next few weeks as some other stuff gets sorted out, so I am free to set aside my poor Google intelligence collection skills and actually do some genuine detective work.
First, for background, we’re talking about An Inconvenient Kook, a woman I’ve tentatively identified as Michelle Lessick aka ZAPEM. All I had to start was:

  • The Twitter username @ZAPEM (now @Repository1) and a now defunct WordPress blog
  • Records of various streams of tweets and writings, which are a fairly distinct personality showing delusions of persecution
  • An email from Patrick Read aka @SwiftRead naming her as Michelle
  • A tip that her last name was Reilly, perhaps Nagy-Riley, which I believe to be incorrect
  • A tip that her name might be Lessick
  • Assertions that she was a police dispatcher and her husband a police officer
  • Many indications she lived in northern New Jersey

I did quite a lot of digging with Google and finally did locate the connection to the name Lessick, which can be seen in the link containing her name. I chased various permutations of this name and the Jascawow alias using a variety of search tools and came up empty.
Someone with some paid services I don’t have gave me the name of a couple in New Jersey with the last name of Lessick, Republicans in their mid fifties. For various subtle reasons I was fairly sure the wife was not the woman I was seeking, but I thought that perhaps Michelle was a daughter in her late twenties to early thirties who had developed schizophrenia, or another relative in the area who is on disability and not visible to typical search methods. I spent a few minutes on the phone with her last night and I’m sure that she is not the one, nor does she seem to be covering for someone she knows.
I wrote a nice note to the Morristown Tea Party leadership, hoping that they may have had their fill of her antics. My source for much of the information I do have is someone on the right who feels her conduct is weird, dangerous, and embarrassing to the rest of them. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find someone local who holds similar views of her.
I went through the Morristown Democrats I could find online, sending email and making calls. I signed up for Topix and posted a request there looking for an activist in the area who can help me make connections. Then I called the chief of police in Morristown and we spent a few minutes on the phone. They don’t have their own dispatchers and he gave me the number to call at the county dispatch center.
Due to Donald Payne’s death I’ve felt it was inappropriate to bother the folks on Capitol Hill, but I will probably go down and make a few inquiries next week.I’ve got fifteen more days to do such things until Aaron Walker’s assault trial. Maybe I will get a break on this, maybe I am going to have to grind through a civil suit, we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.

—

Geolocation Lulz

(Undated)
When kooks follow you around mouthing off about “getting your IP” it’s game on. Check your IP every time you sit down in a coffee shop. Get a lulzy one, like you’re in Vienna, Virginia, but the address resolves to Staten Island? That’s a perfect time to post a comment on some dipshit’s WordPress. Goad them later, but give it a few weeks.
Happen to be visiting the U.S. Capitol? And the person who is going to “get your IP” suffers from delusions of persecution, believing the government is after her? There’s no better time than to visit the House cafeteria in the Longworth building, and post a comment to aforementioned dipshit’s WordPress, knowing your delusional kook will be brought in to investigate.
Keep that host name in mind, some weeks later set up a new Cisco router at home, and capture the mysterious looking ip nat translation table when two of your machines are running torrent. Replace your home IP with housegate12.house.gov, and post the pastebin link to Twitter with some cryptic comments. Hours of fun ensue as kooks go through the torrent peers, looking for ‘clues’.
Kooks once determined I lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Google “Bethesda IP address Comcast”, and in the first page you find a lovely map that leads to a house just north of the NIH complex. Take the IP, get the ‘show ip address’ and ‘show arp’ from your shiny new Cisco home router, edit in the IP from the map in place of your own, then fiddle the MAC address table so any pro will know it’s a game. Put this up on yfrog, then go away for twelve hours. Be sure to get a trollish friend to point it out, laughing at your rookie mistake, so that kooks will know it’s an important ‘clue’.
And then harden the perception that this is an actual address by using Foursquare to check in to a location at the NIH complex itself.
Tweet that you’ve finished receiving the backup torrent from Encyclopedia Dramatica (ie you’re a 100% peer) and that you’ve served up 101G to other EDiots. Promptly drop torrent 30 seconds later, lulz for hours as kooks waste the afternoon trying to dox the completed peers.
CODA
A competent adult, reading this, would say “LOL, internetz”. A troll would say “Hey, I gotta try some of this myself.” Here is how a delusional kook might interpret it. ••••Mention of Virginia address confirms the subject is stalking a Virginia resident –and that must be ME! I must seek a protection order at once. Posting from the Longworth building cafeteria is a lie, he works for a Congressman; we need a call/write in campaign to find out which office. There is a MAP. The map shows a HOUSE. That is where he lives, or it’s his girlfriend, or maybe it’s a safehouse for George Soros when he is in D.C. Mention of Encyclopedia Dramatica. This man is either Garrett, or Zaiger, or maybe he’s Joseph Evers. Look, there’s a cell phone number for him …
So that’s that. Maybe two or three hours of effort total, mostly the run to the Medical Center red line stop when I was in the area anyway, and kooks have been chasing their tails for weeks and weeks.
So, kooks … you guys want me to leak additional IP addresses for you to investigate?

—

A Woman’s Place…

March 24, 2012
Lately I have been chatting a bit online with @NadiaNaffe, the latest in a string of woman @JamesOKeefeIIIhas attempted to victimize by drugging them and then taking advantage of them. There are civil and criminal things afoot here, so I won’t say much more, but this is a trend for the American right … and it’s not working in their favor.
Nadia is the third case where I’ve seen a woman who was working with some right wing oppo thing end up facing sexual harassment/sexual assault. Each time the operation has been blown to bits by the inability of a male leader to respectfully handle the women around him.
As for the other two, one was brassy, aggressive, and after an initial period of shock she has heaped punishment on the ones who offended her, and that included giving me all sorts of things they really didn’t want the world to know. A similar event happened over a year ago, I happened to get into a conversation with the victim of that one, and now a packet of information goes to anyone new the ringleader recruits. He seems puzzled as to all the trouble he is having …
This failure to recruit and retain women, which is far different from having men running female sock puppets, is a deadly peril to the right. They’re already behind the eight ball demographically and at a top level the puzzling anti-contraception debacle is comical, yet painful to watch. I can’t tell what they were thinking –attack contraception, accept an end to abortion as a compromise? Instead a generation of women who enjoy active sex lives are feeling like they’ve had their privates groped by some dirty old man.
I’ve spent the last couple of years researching, teaching, and building capacity –opposition stuff, policy stuff, and if I couldn’t get along with women I wouldn’t have 10% of what I do now. Some examples of a woman’s place include …
I get several complex bits of intel daily –summaries of what is happening in various areas that interest me. Some are lone gun operations, others are teams, but the glue that holds them together are women who have picked a specific issue to stand guard over day in/day out.
I sometimes make new things that need testing –there are a quartet of women between thirty and fifty in my chat client who I can give something partially finished and they’ll grind on it to see if it’s any good. These three classes I’m working on, Security & Anonymity, Grassroots Intel Analyst, and Counter Intel/Counter Troll? My progress would be limited and one dimensional if I weren’t sharing the work with my relentless reviewers.
I get texts pretty much every day, invariably starting with “You need to look at” followed by a link. There are a couple of women who took off with my Analyst’s Shoebox method of handling Google Alerts over a year ago and not much gets by them. Friends, enemies, the issues of the moment, they all have alerts and I generally hear about stuff without having to spend a lot of time digging on my own.
If I want to know what’s happening with the Occupiers in New York, Washington D.C, Denver, Chicago, Oakland, or any of the other hot spots my sources are almost invariably women. This group is a mixed bag –most of my contacts have passed the age of thirty, but there are a few in their mid twenties out on the road who are intent on growing their influence networks, and they’re treasure.
You might start getting the idea that I’ve got some weird problem working with men, but that’s not the case. There are half a dozen toolsmiths in my close circle, men from their early twenties to early sixties, and the more aggressive personalities online, with two notable exceptions, are all male. This just seems to be a natural break point in duties –women will favor relationships, and words, and regular schedules, while men will favor tasks, math, and projects.
So that’s that. The right is old, white, male dominated, racist, misogynist, and they’re chewing up their record keepers, their peace keepers, sometimes with disastrous results.

—

In Which James O’Keefe Obstructs Justice

March 22, 2012
I recently wrote Deleting (Almost) All Your Email, where I talked about my scanty inbox, with just 68 messages as of this afternoon, and how reading the HBGary emails as I wrote this reportchanged my views. I just don’t keep email any more –I get up to 500 messages and it’s time to clean house. I do memorialize important discussions by printing to PDF, but I never want to face what Aaron Barr of HBGary did.
And I will never face what James O’Keefe is going to, because I couldn’t be as foolish, sloppy, and criminal as he is even as an act. I’ll explain …
James probably made his final error by getting into conflict with @NadiaNaffe. This is the third time he’s had some weird sex/refusal/attempt to video tape someone in the context of his ‘journalism’ and this young lady has a unique advantage over the other two, in that O’Keefe made one disastrous error.
Nadia was involved in a sting operation aimed at journalist Charles Seife. The roots of the failed “To Catch A Journalist” effort were simple –Seife knew something was up with O’Keefe’s Project Veritasand he was asking to see the IRS documentation. He isn’t the only one and that isn’t the only problem charity he is involved in –others have questioned the nature of the Muslim Education Action Center, a sock puppet O’Keefe rigged up to smear National Public Radio.
While Naffe was in the field O’Keefe gave her his iPhone and he remained nearby in a car, using her Android phone and laptop to conduct other business. He failed to delete his accounts when they switched phones.
So understand what happened –O’Keefe walked away leaving Naffe with his email going back to 2004. Shehas had this information since October of 2011 and he’s been jacking with her the whole time. She has already released details of Izzy Santa’s settlement with O’Keefe and Project Veritas.
So far the matters are civil in nature, revealing a troubled young man who is either unable to respect, or completely unaware of the boundaries a woman his age would have. But what is not being said here is even more interesting to me.
O’Keefe was caught attempting to wire tap Senator Mary Landrieu’s phones in the company of the son of one of the two U.S. Attorneys for Louisiana, which got him federal probation. His taping of ACORN workers in Maryland was a clear violation of state wire tap laws, and he recently found similar trouble in New Hampshire.
Despite the questions about IRS filing status for two non-profits and multiple wire tap events some mysterious force keeps the New Jersey federal probation office responsible for O’Keefe from having him picked up for probation violations and referring him for further prosecution.
The contents of Ms. Naffe’s phone are likely the tool needed to break loose that log jam and put an end to O’Keefe reckless endangerment of any young woman who makes the mistake of associating with him, as well as the hazard his smear operation represents to our democracy.
O’Keefe is scrambling to put a lid on this –suing Naffe for the return of these emails. If there is evidence of crimes committed in those messages, which seems certain given what is already known about O’Keefe’s activities, this is obstruction of justice.
The solution to this problem is quite simple –Naffe can provide the content to those who have already subpoenaed her, then turn the content into the FBIsomewhere outside of New Jersey. The combination of other O’Keefe victims, who have resources and no entanglement, coupled with the FBI receiving the email outside the reach of whatever is happening in New Jersey, will be an unstoppable combination.

Update (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: The Kimberlin Files

A: To Justify Fascism

Posted on | June 16, 2012 | 26 Comments

by Smitty

Q (emphasis mine):

Although Hood believes the self may be the greatest trick our brain has ever played on us, he concludes that believing in it makes life more fulfilling. The illusion is difficult–if not impossible–to dispel. Even if we could, why deny an experience that enables empathy, storytelling and love?

Insty links the SciAm review of a new book which is worth bringing up in discussion. If you want to factor out any theistic concept of a soul or notion of free will in one fell swoop, this sort of materialistic reduction is the way to go.

And it’s cool, too: once we’ve got life reduced to measurable bits of matter, and have nuked the idea of a ‘self’, we can set about the elimination of the individual and manage society through a series of spreadsheets. The molecules made us do it–how could there be a Devil?

This is not an evangelical pleading, though. My secular answer to this discussion is that the self, and freewill, have got to be taken as an assumption. That is, barring clear genetic-level defects like Downs, free moral agency has got to be the default position for the individual. Otherwise, we remain a societal collection of infants, forced into heroin addiction and inter-species romance because we’re, you know, victims.

Maybe there is some middle ground here, some non-slippery-slope argument. Self portrait of a ProgressiveHowever, we will no sooner make some famous last concession to the purely materialistic worldview then some power-mad individual is going to use that concession as a pretext to herd people. E.g. ObamaCare. As you love liberty, don’t give up the conceptual ship of freewill, or you’ll be awash in authoritarianism!

Category: Progressivism
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