The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 04.04.18

Posted on | April 4, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.04.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Going to Minnesota tomorrow for a long weekend with friends, family, furries, and other otaku. Posting may be intermittent, and both the FMJRA and Rule 5 Sunday may be delayed.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #215
EBL: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Twitchy: Cops’ Colossal YouTube Shooter Screwup Actually Gets Worse
Louder With Crowder: UK Man Defends Himself From Burglars, Kills One – Is Charged With Murder

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #79 – The Magical Days Episode
American Power: Orange County Faces Legal Threat Over Anti-Camping Laws, also, Michael Walsh, The Fiery Angel
American Thinker: Why a 53-Year-Old Big City Lawyer Who’s Never Shot A Gun Joined The NRA
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Trump Tells Democrats “You Didn’t Clap Loud Enough! DACA Is Dead!”
Da Tech Guy: Voices At CPAC 2018 – Byron York Of The Washington Examiner
Don Surber: I Ordered Four My Pillows. Maybe You Should Too.
Dustbury: Please Don’t Think Ill Of Me
Fausta: [Fausta Wertz is recovering from an appendectomy and would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. – Wombat-socho]
The Geller Report: Canadian Muslim Family Conference To Feature Pro-Jihad Speaker, also, Mark Zuckerberg Explains How Facebook Will Try To Kill Alternative Media
Hogewash: An Anniversary, also, A Cosmic Cold Front
Joe For America: Being A Police Officer In California Is Going To Be More Dangerous
Legal Insurrection: After YouTube Shooting, We Need Better Vegan Activist Control, also, Merkel Under Pressure Over Germany’s Imported Stabbing Epidemic
Michelle Malkin: Open-Borders Churches, Caravans, And Sanctuaries
Power Line: Mulvaney Responds To Warren, also, Chappaquiddick Revisited
Shark Tank: Graham Attacks Trump In New Ad
Shot In The Dark: Ganders
STUMP: Kentucky Meltdown – Teachers In Revolt, Bill In The Sewers, & Nothing Actually Solved
The Jawa Report: Nonviolent Iranian Feminist Vegan Animal Activist Attacks YouTube
The Political Hat: Obama’s Assault On Urban, Suburban & Rural Communities On Its Last Breath?
This Ain’t Hell: Four Marines Feared Dead In Helicopter Crash, also, Trump To Send Troops To The Border
Victory Girls: Wu, Black, And The YouTube Shooter
Weasel Zippers: Dem Rep Debbie Dingell To Introduce Gun Confiscation Legislation, also, Clinton Admits He Tried To Help Peres Beat Netanyahu In 1996 Israeli Elections


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Category: Linkagery

The ‘David Jewberg’ Hoax

Posted on | April 4, 2018 | Comments Off on The ‘David Jewberg’ Hoax

 

Oleksiy Kuzmenko has a fascinating report at Bellingcat about how Dan Rapoport created an online persona, “David Jewberg,” who claimed to be an Army lieutenant-colonel, a Pentagon “senior analyst” specializing in Russia policy. “Jewberg” amassed a substantial following on Facebook and was interviewed via email by a Ukrainian reporter:

Although “Jewberg” has often been quoted as being a Pentagon insider by Ukrainian and Russian media, he is evidently a fake composite character and “the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department have disavowed [his existence], stating that they have never employed a person by this name,” Bellingcat writes. . . .
“Jewberg” is best known for running a popular Facebook page used to post anti-Kremlin, anti-Trump sentiments in the Russian language. Jewberg also posted photos and identification cards in an attempt to attest that he was real, although all such evidence actually featured the photograph of a Texan man named Steve Farro — a college friend of Rapoport’s.

In 2013, Rapoport was fined nearly $70,000 by the Security and Exchange Commission for violations regarding his solicitation of U.S. investors in Russian companies. “Rapoport also claimed on numerous occasions to have worked for Romney and Jeb Bush presidential campaigns,” according to Kuzmenko. The “Jewberg” persona was promoted by various people associated with the Free Russia Foundation, an anti-Putin group. Rapoport relocated to Ukraine in 2016, Kuzmenko reports, but the “Jewberg” hoax — which involved the posting of fake military identification — could expose Rapoport to charges of impersonating a federal employee in violation of 18 U.S.C § 912.

Doveryai, no proveryai — “Trust, but verify,” as Reagan said.

 

Category: Russia

‘Emotional Abuse and Cruel Punishment’: Woman Reported Lesbian Couple in 2013

Posted on | April 4, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

More background on the story of Jennifer and Sarah Hart, the lesbian couple who adopted six black children and died when they drove their SUV off an oceanside cliff in California last week:

A woman said Tuesday that she told Oregon child welfare officials in 2013 that Jennifer and Sarah Hart — who plunged off a California cliff with their children last month in an SUV — had been depriving the kids of food as punishment.
In a statement provided to the Associated Press, Alexandra Argyropoulos, a former friend of the Harts, said she “witnessed what I felt to be controlling emotional abuse and cruel punishment” toward the six children.
Argyropoulos said she was told the children had been interviewed by officials but there was nothing more the Oregon Department of Human Services could do because there was not enough evidence to make a case. . . .
Authorities have said social service officials in Oregon contacted the West Linn Police Department about the family in 2013 while they were living in the area. Police referred media questions to the Oregon Department of Human Services, which cited privacy laws in refusing to say whether the agency was involved.
After reporting her concerns in 2013, Argyropoulos said, she was told the Hart children had been interviewed by officials from the Oregon department; it was apparent that each child had been coached by their mothers on what to say; and nothing more could be done.
Argyropoulos said she was unaware of a 2011 domestic assault conviction against Sarah Hart. She said the couple broke off contact with her after she went to Oregon officials.
“My heart is completely broken. The current system failed to protect these children from their abusers,” Argyropoulos said. . . .
On Sunday, authorities disclosed that data from the vehicle’s software suggested the crash was deliberate. They said the SUV had stopped at a pull-off area before speeding straight off the cliff.

All six children were adopted from Texas. Three were found near the crash site, and the other three are missing and presumed dead. Jennifer and Sarah Hart had a history of abuse complaints:

The parents of Devonte Hart removed him and his five siblings from public schools in Minnesota the day after one of his mothers resolved a child-abuse court case, The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned.
Sarah Hart reached a probation agreement April 14, 2011, a week after she pleaded guilty to physically abusing one of her daughters, who was then 6 years old.
The next day, all six of their adopted children were taken out of public schools in Alexandria, where the family lived before moving to Oregon. They would never attend public school again. . . .
An Alexandria police report obtained Tuesday also shows a different daughter told authorities in 2008 one of her mothers bruised her with a belt.
Asked by police about the beating, Jennifer and Sarah Hart said the girl had fallen down the stairs days before, the report shows. . . .
All eight Harts left their home in Woodland, Washington, sometime after no one answered the door March 23 for a visit by child protective services, according to neighbors and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. . . .
Court records in Minnesota show Sarah Hart in 2011 received a 90-day suspended jail sentence and a year of probation after daughter Abigail arrived at Woodland Elementary School with bruises on her stomach and back.
The girl’s teacher contacted social services and police.
Abigail told authorities her mother struck her repeatedly with a closed fist, submerged her head under cold water and withheld meals from her for misbehaving, according to report by police in Alexandria, a small town northwest of Minneapolis where the family lived.
Though the girl said Jennifer Hart was the one who hit her, Sarah Hart pleaded guilty April 7, 2011, to misdemeanor domestic assault.
Previously, Abigail’s older sister Hannah said in September 2008 it was her mother Jennifer who struck her with a belt, causing a bruise on her arm that attracted notice — and a call to authorities, according to the newly obtained Alexandria police report.
In an interview, both mothers told a police sergeant and social worker they had no idea how Hannah, who was 6 at the time, got the bruise but said she had recently fallen down the stairs in their home. . . .
Records show the Hart children enrolled in Alexandria public schools Sept. 8, 2009 — seven months after Jennifer and Sarah finalized their adoption of siblings Devonte, Jeremiah and Sierra in Harris County, Texas. The women had previously adopted siblings Markis, Abigail and Hannah from Colorado County, Texas, in September 2006. . . .
Bruce and Dana DeKalb, who lived next door in Washington, said Devonte had come to their home a dozen times to ask for food, saying his parents had withheld it as a form of punishment.
The DeKalbs also recounted that three months after the family moved into a home on 2 acres last May, one of the girls rang their doorbell in the middle of the night.
The girl, who they later learned was Hannah, “was at our door in a blanket saying we needed to protect her,” Bruce DeKalb said. “She said that they were abusing her.”

This was an avoidable tragedy. Did political correctness discourage authorities from intervening to save the lives of these children?




 

Category: Crime, Gays, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington State

Animal Rights Activist Nasim Aghdam Identified as YouTube Shooter

Posted on | April 4, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Tuesday’s shootings at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno were committed by an animal rights activist apparently angry because she felt the company had censored her videos. On her website, Nasim Aghdam said YouTube “filtered my channels to keep them from getting views.” Her family confirmed that she was angry at the company:

The woman who allegedly shot three people at YouTube’s headquarters in California on Tuesday, before apparently taking her own life with a firearm used in the assault, may have held a grudge against the video-sharing company, according to her family.
Authorities identified the suspect who wounded a man and two women at YouTube’s office complex in San Bruno as Nasim Aghdam, a 39-year-old resident of San Diego.
Police said a motive for the attack has not been identified and no evidence has emerged to suggest the shooter knew the victims or that individuals were specifically targeted.
However, Aghdam’s father, Ismail Aghdam, said his daughter told her family just a few weeks ago that she was “angry with the company” because she believed it was censoring her YouTube videos and stopped paying her for her content. Ismail Aghdam made the comments in an interview Tuesday night with the Bay Area News Group.

Aghdam’s family tried to warn police she was dangerous:

The night before Nasim Aghdam opened fire in a courtyard at YouTube’s headquarters Tuesday afternoon, Mountain View police found the San Diego woman sleeping in her car.
She had been reported missing by her family in Southern California, and her father Ismail Aghdam told police she might be going to YouTube because she “hated” the company. Police called the family at 2 a.m. Tuesday to say she’d been found and that everything was “under control,” her father said.
But hours later, his daughter was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot after shooting three people and causing an afternoon of terror at YouTube’s headquarters.

After all that YouTube has done to suppress conservative videos, how ironic is it that an Iranian-American animal-rights activist resorted to terroristic violence against the company?

UPDATE: Reuters adds more details:

The woman approached an outdoor patio and dining courtyard on the campus around lunchtime and began to fire before entering the building, police said. . . .
The website NasimeSabz.com, which media said was linked to the attacker, had several posts about Persian culture and veganism, interspersed with screeds against YouTube. Those complaints included claims the company was not sharing enough revenue with people who create videos for the platform.
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube, or any other video-sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to,” read one posting on the site. A YouTube account in the name of Nasime Sabz was deleted in the evening on 3 April. . . .
Last month, YouTube announced it would ban content promoting the sale of guns and gun accessories, as well as videos that teach how to make guns.
Female mass shooters are rare. A recent Washington Post analysis shows only three of 150 US shootings with more than four victims since 1966 were carried out by women.

 

Category: Crime

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 04.03.18

Posted on | April 4, 2018 | Comments Off on Late Night With In The Mailbox: 04.03.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Trashtown: David Hogg, Gun Salesman
EBL: Vanity Fair‘s Kurt Eichenwald Is Attacking Parkland Survivors
Twitchy: Lefties Triggered By Black Conservative Woman’s Open Letter To Illegal Immigrants
Louder With Crowder: Ben Shapiro, Piers Morgan Have Twitter Beef Over Gun Control

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Thinker: The Natural Right Of Self-Preservation And The Second Amendment
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Savage News
BattleSwarm: YouTube Shooter A Vegan Animal Rights Activist
BLACKFIVE: C.J. Box, The Disappeared
CDR Salamander: LCS – An Unending, Floating PSYOPS Own Goal
Da Tech Guy: You Say You Want Independent Journalism, also, The FBI’s Long List Of Failures
Don Surber: “Because It Can’t Be That He’s Doing A Great Job, Right?”
Dustbury: The Scourge Of The Maryland ‘Burbs
The Geller Report: Nasim Aghdam Named As YouTube Shooter, Railed Against Company, also, Small Muslim Child Waves Knife At Israeli Security Officer As Mother Looks On
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, How Old Is Your OS?
Joe For America: Ten “Anonymous” Donors Behind March For Our Lives Exposed
JustOneMinute: YouTube Shooting
Legal Insurrection: Rosenstein Memo Confirming Mueller Could Investigate Manafort Came One Week After Raid On Manafort’s House, also, “My Pillow” Guy – “We’re Not Pulling Ads From Ingraham”
Power Line: Mueller’s (Secret) Mandate, also, Is Our Culture Dead?
Shark Tank: It’s Official – Manjarres Running Against Deutch For Congress
Shot In The Dark: Open Letter To Fleet Farm
STUMP:  Taxing Tuesday – Idea For Progressive Income Tax In IL, Adding Dependents To Tax Change Analysis
The Jawa Report: Introducing New Facebook Feature – Facebook Brain Dead, also, Twitter Says Hamas Violating TOS, Yet Hamas Remains
This Ain’t Hell: Air Force Affirms Colonel’s Religious Beliefs, also, USS Little Rock Comes Home
Victory Girls: Are Real Men Out There?
Weasel Zippers: “My Pillow” CEO Says He Won’t Be Bullied By Hogg’s Boycott, also, Saudi Crown Prince Says Israel Has A Right To Exist
Megan McArdle: What Caused The 1968 Riots?
Mark Steyn: Open Borders For Thee, Orange Alert For Me, also, Of Necklaces And Caravans


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WOMAN SHOOTS PEOPLE, KILLS HERSELF AT YOUTUBE OFFICE

Posted on | April 3, 2018 | 2 Comments

The California offices of the YouTube online video service were the site of a shooting today. According to some early accounts, a woman shot her boyfriend and then shot several other people.

UPDATE: From the San Francisco Chronicle:

San Bruno police and San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies rushed to YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno Tuesday afternoon in response to an active shooter inside the building.
Several YouTube employees reported on social media hearing gunfire and running for their lives.
“Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk,” one employee, Vadim Lavrusik, wrote on Twitter just before 1 p.m. “Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers.”
There were no immediate details from authorities other than to confirm that there was an active shooter inside the building at 901 Cherry Avenue.
“We are responding to an active shooter,” San Bruno police tweeted at 1:28 p.m. “Please stay away from Cherry Ave & Bay Hill Drive.”

UPDATE II: Fox News just carried a live report from a KTVU-TV reporter on the scene, who said witnesses told him that a woman shot her boyfriend and then shot herself. In an update from a local hospital, it was reported that two women and one man were being treated, the man being in critical condition.

UPDATE III: At a press conference, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini reported that there are three injured, and one dead — the apparent shooter, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

UPDATE IV: There seems to be some confusion as to whether three or four people were injured. The local ABC affiliate reports a 36-year-old male (apparently the target of the shooting) is in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, while two women — ages 32 and 27 — are hospitalized in serious and fair condition, respectively.

UPDATE V: The identity of the shooter is unknown and, although it can be surmised that she was enraged at her boyfriend, police at this point are saying nothing about her motive.

UPDATE VI: Animal Rights Activist Nasim Aghdam Identified as YouTube Shooter

 

Category: Crime

Mystery After Lesbian Couple’s Apparent Suicidal Plunge Off California Cliff

Posted on | April 3, 2018 | 3 Comments

The Hart family at a 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign rally.

A lesbian couple, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, adopted six black children. One of those children, Devonte Hart, became briefly famous in 2014 after a photo of him tearfully hugging a white policeman at a “Black Lives Matter” protest rally in Portland, Oregon, went viral. Police now fear Devonte is dead, along with his five siblings, after the Hart family’s SUV drove off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean in northern California:

The SUV that authorities said was carrying a family of eight — two parents and six adopted children — was traveling at 90 mph before it plunged off a California cliff last week, according to court documents obtained by a local TV station.
Fox affiliate KPTV in Oregon reported that the SUV’s speedometer was “pinned” at that speed, indicating that the vehicle remained in motion after it fell and just before it hit the rocks 100 feet below on the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators also did not find any marks showing that the vehicle either accelerated or slowed down before it reached the cliff, or any evidence that it crashed into the embankment as it “traversed towards the tidal zone below,” according the documents cited by KPTV.
The crash, which killed a family that had once captured the world’s attention, has left troubling questions. Killed are the two mothers, Jennifer Jean Hart and Sarah Margaret Hart, both 38, and at least three of their adopted children. The other three remain missing.
The TV report provides a glimpse into what may have preceded the Monday afternoon crash at the ocean overlook near Westport, California, a small community about 180 miles north of San Francisco. Child services officials in Washington state, where the family lived, also have confirmed that they had begun investigating the Harts over “alleged abuse or neglect” days earlier.

The Hart family’s SUV plunged off an oceanside cliff in California.

More from the Los Angeles Times:

The search for three missing siblings feared dead after their family’s SUV plunged down a cliff into the sea last week has been delayed by rough conditions on the California coast.
Strong currents, frigid water and rough waves have prevented Mendocino County Sheriff’s divers and rescuers from looking for the missing Hart children, Lt. Shannon Barney said Monday. . . .
The children are Devonte Hart, 15, who was briefly famous for a powerful 2014 photograph of the teen tearfully hugging a police sergeant in Oregon at a protest amid unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and his sisters Hannah and Sierra Hart, 16 and 12, respectively.
Authorities said they believe the three were in the car with their siblings, Markis, 19, Jeremiah, 14, and Abigail, 14, and their parents, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, both 38, when their GMC Yukon dropped 100 feet onto the rocky Mendocino County shore off Highway 1 near Juan Creek.
The fatal plunge appears to have been intentional based on the lack of skid marks and the fact that the vehicle was at a full stop before accelerating off the cliff, the California Highway Patrol said Monday. . . .
Three of the children’s bodies were found outside the vehicle. The parents’ bodies were found inside. Investigators believe the three missing siblings were also in the crash based on interviews with Hart family and friends. . . .
There were no skid marks or brake marks, and the couple’s children had recently been identified by child welfare authorities as possible victims of abuse and neglect.

Originally from Minnesota, the couple moved to the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon, and moved to Washington State last year:

A search warrant was served at the home of Jennifer Jean Hart and Sarah Margaret Hart on Thursday.
A search warrant affidavit was granted in Clark County in connection with this investigation for items including travel itinerary, bank records, cell phone records, credit card billing statements, bank receipts, notes, journals and possible suicide notes.
No details have been released about the results of the search at the couple’s home. The couple purchased the home in May 2017 and previously lived in West Linn. . . .
Neighbors in Woodland told FOX 12 this week they contacted Child Protective Services when one of the children, 15-year-old Devonte Hart, came to their home begging for food for himself and his siblings.
The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services released a statement Wednesday confirming a case was opened regarding the family last Friday, as “the now-deceased children were identified as potential victims of alleged abuse or neglect.”

KWG-TV reports:

Authorities in Oregon, Washington and Minnesota all received reports of child welfare concerns involving the Hart family prior to the family’s fatal crash on the California coast, records and interviews show. . . .
Over the past decade, the family has lived in Alexandria, Minnesota; West Linn, Oregon; and Woodland, Washington. Friends say the family was loving but records show several allegations of abuse or neglect.
One of the Hart’s daughters Abigail, then 6 years old, told her teacher [in 2010] that she had “owies” on her tummy and back, according to a complaint filed in Minnesota. The teacher said she saw bruises on her stomach and back. Abigail then told her teacher, “mom hit me.”
During an interview with detectives, Sarah Hart admitted to spanking her daughter and she said she let her anger get out of control, according to the complaint.
Jennifer Hart told investigators she knew that Sarah spanked her daughter.
Sarah Hart pleaded guilty to domestic assault and was sentenced to 90 days in jail but wasn’t required to serve time due to terms of her probation.

So one of the parents had a criminal conviction for abuse eight years ago, and the family was also investigated by Washington State authorities in 2013, yet they were idealized by local liberals:

“Jen and Sarah were the kinds of parents this world desperately needs,” said Portland photographer Zippy Lomax, who had known the family since 2012. “They loved their kids more than anything else.”
The Hart family was a regular at Oregon festivals and shows, Lomax said, including the Beloved festival in Tidewater. They also joined presidential candidate Bernie Sanders onstage during a 2016 rally in Vancouver. . . .
Court records and recent neighbors, however, portray a family that was at times strained.
The Harts and their children left their home Friday shortly after no one answered the door for a visit by the authorities, according to neighbors and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Bruce and Dana DeKalb, who lived next door, said they rarely spoke with the family, which about 10 months ago moved to the remote wooded area in northern Clark County.
Dana DeKalb said Devonte had come to their home a dozen times to ask for food, saying his parents had withheld it as a form of punishment. The teen would ask the couple to leave the food by the fence they shared so his parents wouldn’t know, she said. . . .
Bill Groener, who lived next door to the family in West Linn, said they kept to themselves and the kids mostly stayed indoors – even in good weather. Groener said the only contact he had with the family is when they went out to get the mail.
“Something,” Groener said, “just didn’t seem right.”

Will the “Black Lives Matter” movement have anything to say about this?

 

Category: California, Crime, Gays, Oregon, Washington State

‘Our Country Is Being Stolen!’

Posted on | April 3, 2018 | Comments Off on ‘Our Country Is Being Stolen!’

Responding to accounts of an “army” of Central American migrants marching through Mexico toward the U.S. border, President Trump went on a Twitter rant Monday morning:

Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large “Caravans” of people enter their country. They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws…..
…Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People. Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!
DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon… No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!

Liberal media reacted by asserting that the phrase “our country” is racist, and pointing out that DACA doesn’t apply to new immigrants.

 

Category: Donald Trump, Immigration
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