The Other McCain

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

TwitterGate Update: Neal Rauhauser Switches Account to ‘Protected’ Status

Posted on | October 9, 2010 | 41 Comments

After my first post about TwitterGate, many of the “Beandogs” in Democratic campaign consultant Neal Rauhauser’s network were laughing as if it were all a big joke. Yesterday, I came back with a second post that connected the dots a bit more clearly — and highlighted Rauhauser’s status as a Daily Kos contributor.

In the comments of the second post this morning, Right Klik had linked numerous communications between Rauhauser and his “Beandogs,” both from his “StrandedWind” and “WingNutWatch” accounts.

In one of those Tweets, Rauhauser said, “my role is trainer, coordinator, develop methods, etc. If civil or criminal proceedings begin deposition is lawyer’s job.” In another key message, “Obamagician” — who had previously Tweeted that conservative blogger Greg Howard had “sexy, f***able children” — told Rauhauser, “Thx for you hard work.”

Such messages obviously lend credibility to the TwitterGate video’s suggestion that the “Beandogs” harassment against Howard and other conservatives on Twitter was carried out with Rauhauser’s knowledge, if not indeed as part of an orchestrated effort of which Rauhauser described himself as “coordinator.” And now look what we find:

Rauhauser has now switched his “StrandedWind” account to protected mode, and if you click on any of the messages from Rauhauser’s “WingNutWatch” account you get this:

Rauhauser deleted that account and protected the other, the kind of gesture a detective might say was indicative of “consciousness of guilt.”

The obvious question: If Rauhauser has nothing to hide, why is he hiding? Let me suggest an obvious answer: Rauhauser is becoming an embarrassment to his Democratic clients, especially Arizona 7th District Rep. Raul Grijalva.

Rauhauser had boasted of his relationship with Grijalva — who sent the consultant a “thank you” note — and like so many other previously “safe” Democratic incumbents this year, Grijalva is in the toughest re-election battle of his career. The Yuma Sun reported on Thursday’s debate:

Incumbent Democratic Congressmen Raul Grijalva admitted Thursday that it was a mistake to call for a boycott of Arizona after Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070.
“On my part it was a strategic mistake to call for the boycott,” he said. “I felt that it would have an impact on the leadership of this state … but the fact of the matter is that they’re not going to change their mind…”
One student, Lisa Griffin, informed the candidates that according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Yuma currently has an unemployment rate of 30.2 percent and asked them what they plan to do to usher more industry into the area, thus creating more jobs. . . .

Grijalva called for an economic boycott of his own state at a time when unemployment in parts of his own district is over 30%! Now imagine the horror of Grijalva’s staff when they saw this video exposing what their consultant Rauhauser had been up to since August:

When I first linked that video Thursday, it had gotten 288 views; as of this morning, it had nearly 5,000 views. If you Google “Grijalva” and “Rauhauser,” you see that this was becoming a big enough story that other journalists might be starting to ask questions. (Hey, Kossacks: You’re not the only ones who know how to use Google.)

Congratulations to Greg Howard, Patrick Read and others who helped compile the “Twittergate” research. That video dossier may not have connected all the dots, but if you show people enough dots, sooner or later the pattern becomes clear enough that only a blind man can miss it.

I’m leaving for Boston this afternoon to do some more shoe-leather campaign reporting. Please hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: The “besieged” Democrats now have their own Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE II: Linked by Dan Collins at Piece of Work in Progress.

UPDATE III: To understand just how desperate Democrats have become, check out Professor Donald Douglas’s post about how the Left used a “Nazi” smear against an Ohio Republican for his participation in a WWII historical re-enactment group.

UPDATE IV: Why is the Left getting so desperate? Even progressive poll analyst Nate Silver is now projecting that Republicans will gain 50 House seats Nov. 2. Small wonder that Democrats are trying to pull the Jedi mind-trick on the Rauhauser scandal.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Arizona, Congress, Daily Kos, Democrats, Election, Scandal, Tea Party, Video

Few Miles Journeyed to Richmond: Adavantageous

Posted on | October 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

The Virginia Tea Party Convention has been a success. Attending an event in a full-on convention center means that the booths and the speakers have much more room. It’s far less cramped than CPAC has been. We couldn’t wish for better speakers and breakout sessions. I’ve got 16Gb of video that is going to have to wait until I get home tonight and/or tomorrow to wade through. Also, the wife has to be pried off of the shiny new Alienware laptop that actually has the guts to edit .mts video files. Read more

Category: FMJRA Award

LIVE AT FIVE10.9.10

Posted on | October 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

TOP NEWS

Chinese Political Prisoner Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Liu Xiaobo


Nobel Committee ignores PRC pressure, selects Charter 08 author and longtime advocate of nonviolent change to PRC political system

96,000 More Jobs Lost In September
Unexpectedly!

Jones Out, Donilon In As National Security Adviser
Replacing a general with a lawyer. As they didn’t have enough lawyers running the wars already.

40 State AGs Looking At Joint Foreclosure Probe
BoA, others freezing foreclosures




POLITICS

Capitalizing On Cash Advantage, GOP Goes For Full-Court Press

Minority Leader John Boehner rips "out of touch" Democrats


Shades of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, only with elephants

Brown Staffer’s Phone Flub Shot In Arm For Whitman?

Christie May Reconsider Cancelled Hudson River Tunnel



Cahill Campaign Continues To Implode




THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Wal-Mart Ends Employee Profit Sharing

No New Reactor For Calvert Cliffs

Adobe Stock Drops As Merger Rumors Recede

Grain Prices Up On Poor Corn Harvest News




SPORTS

Ankiel Hits 11th Inning Blast, Braves Tie NLDS

Braves manager Bobby Cox


Game moved to TNT, appropriately enough

Reds Give Away 4-0 Lead On Errors, Phillies Come Back To Win 7-4

Choking Twins Get No Sympathy For Playoff Failures

Stanford Favored This Weekend Over – USC?!?!

Cocks Game Enough To Roll Back Tide?

Thrashers Goalie Collapses On Ice, Atlanta Wins Opener Anyway




FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Michigan Couple Sentenced To Four Years In Stamos Extortion

John Stamos


Attempted blackmail with nonexistent photos showing “Glee” star with hookers & blow

Eminem: No Profanity In My House

Sundance Favorite “Blue Valentine” Gets NC-17 Rating

No Phone, Twitter For LiLo In Rehab

Serving Up Curves: Rachael Ray Dresses Up As Jessica Rabbit For Halloween Show

Ozzy Disgusted At WBC Use Of His Music




FOREIGNERS

Kyrgyzstan Votes For Parliamentary Democracy
No one knows who’ll win! Crazy!

Rescue Of Trapped Chilean Miners Imminent

Former Labour Spin Doctor Slags Mandelson, Miliband, Others In Party

Sarkozy, Pope Benedict To Meet About Vatican’s Roma Concerns




BLOGS & STUFF

Deadspin: Liverpool FC Chairman Admires Winning Attitude Of The Boston Rod Sex (Video)

Powerline: Strong Shots And Long Shots

Verum Serum: About That “Hijacking Democracy”, Mr. President…

Jawa Report: Things We Can Learn From The FBI GPS Flap

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Beat Keith Ellison . . . For the Children!

Posted on | October 8, 2010 | 14 Comments

There are 435 congressional districts in America and even a stone political junkie can’t keep up with every campaign in the country. So I sometimes run across great candidates more or less at random:

Republican Joel Demos seems like he’s got a great sense of humor, and he’ll probably need it, because the 5th District of Minnesota makes San Francisco look moderate by comparison. Probably Ed Morrissey or some other Minnesotan could explain why this district is so mind-numbingly liberal.

Maybe “liberal” isn’t the right word. Dhimmi is more like it.

The incumbent Democrat, Keith Ellison, could very well be Osama bin Laden’s favorite member of Congress. Seriously: This guy is from what I call the Sirhan Sirhan wing of the Democratic Party. Pamela Geller has extensively chronicled Ellison’s ties to Hamas, ISNA and CAIR.

You might think, what with all these “progressives” portraying the GOP as a Zionist neocon imperialist conspiracy, Joel Demos must be sitting on a fat stack of Republican Jew money.

And you would be wrong. In fact, despite the Jewish-controlled media that Rich Sanchez warned us about, most people probably didn’t even know Keith Ellison had a Republican opponent. Red State’s Moe Lane did an interview with Demos, but that’s about it.

So here’s your chance to rectify this error. Give Joel Demos $20.

Yeah, I know. It seems like kind of a long shot, but look at this picture of Joel, his wife Jenny and their two cute little kids:

You’re looking at that picture and saying, “Oh, how sweet!”

Meanwhile, Keith Ellison’s supporters are looking at that picture and shouting: “Death to the infidel dogs!”

And you know something? Demos has been starting to get attention lately, by airing his clever ads during football games in Minnesota. So while Keith Ellison’s supporters are busy planning how to blow us to smithereens and impose sharia on the survivors, the normal red-blooded Americans in the 5th district are seeing this nice guy with his cute kids talking about the national debt.

C’mon: Give $20 to help elect Joel Demos.

Because if you don’t, the terrorists have won.

JOEL DEMOS for U.S. CONGRESS

Category: Congress, Election, Minnesota, Video

The John Tierney Scandal: Did Democrat Benefit From His Racketeering In-Laws?

Posted on | October 8, 2010 | 24 Comments

The Massacusetts Democrat’s wife pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges this week, and now questions are being asked about John Tierney’s campaign contributions:

US Representative John F. Tierney’s elderly mother-in-law donated $4,800 to his campaign account at the same time that she was receiving money from a bank account that was allegedly funded with illegal gambling money her son made from an offshore sports betting operation.
Tierney’s wife, Patrice Tierney, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns for her brother Robert Eremian, and acknowledged she managed a bank account for him that was allegedly funded with more than $7 million in illegal gambling profits he earned from an Internet betting operation based in Antigua.
Prosecutors said Patrice Tierney used the account to pay bills for her 86-year-old mother, Mary Eremian, and for Robert Eremian’s three children. Robert Eremian, 57, is a fugitive, wanted on a federal racketeering indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Boston in August. . . .

Read the whole thing. This emerging scandal against the 6th District incumbent could make Tierney unexpectedly vulnerable to Republican challenger Bill Hudak, who is within striking distance, according to one recent poll.

There’s an entire Web site devoted to exposing Congressman John Tierney.

I’m going to Massacusetts for several days this coming week to cover Sean Bielat’s MA-4 campaign against Barney Frank, but I hope also to be able to cover the Hudak campaign against Tierney in MA-6, Republican Jeffrey Perry’s campaign for the open MA-10 seat, and Republican challenger Charlie Baker’s surprisingly competitive campaign against Gov. Deval Patrick.

My plane arrives late Saturday in Boston. Please hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Congress, Corruption, Crime, Democrats, Election, Massachusetts, Shoe Leather Fund

Another Axis Of Fedora Expansion

Posted on | October 8, 2010 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Just a conservative girl joins the fold.

Then, Kat from Cathouse Chat tuned in, tried on, Fedorad out:

We hit the trifecta with Debbie Lee of America’s Mighty Warriors. What a wonderful, motivating lady.

The Axis of Fedora would like to take a moment to debut its new victory theme on drums:

Meanwhile, back at the Marriott, I have a ton of video to wade through. Back to work.

Category: Blogging, Video

VIDEO: Conservatives ‘Humping the Leg’ of Violent Extremism, Markos Says

Posted on | October 8, 2010 | 20 Comments

The Blaze features this video of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga at a book event last month:

Markos describes “right-wing extremists and an uprising of violence from those groups in the wake of Obama’s election.”

Of course, no such “uprising” has been documented. Markos is referring to the now-infamous April 2009 Department of Homeland Security report. The DHS was shown to have based its report on seriously flawed information provided by left-wing propagandists who count every state chapter of the Constitution Party as a dangerous “Patriot” group. 

Such reports would suggest, for example, that Rhode Island is a hotbed of neo-Nazi extremism, and these absurd exaggerations tend to discredit those who “would paint a box of Wheaties as an extremist threat if [they] thought that would help it raise money,” as Jesse Walker of Reason magazine said.

So the premise that Markos uses to set up his subsequent statement is false. And then, he says “the right wing went crazy. They went nuts.”

Brilliant, see? An agency of the federal government issues a report smearing millions of honest law-abiding citizens and, if you complain, you’re “nuts.” Read more

Category: Blogging, Daily Kos, Tea Party, Video

Economics for 11-Year-Olds

Posted on | October 8, 2010 | 17 Comments

Thursday, after I picked up my kids from school, we were listening to the news on the car radio and something prompted my 11-year-old son Jefferson to ask, “Dad, what’s a recession?”

So I explained that the official designation of recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth — a decline in the gross domestic product.

Next, Jefferson asked, “What’s a double-dip recession?” Read more

Category: Economics
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin