It was not Jay Leiderman but some other lawyer out 35 grand for the Commander X fugitive schtick.
FINE ***
That's Jay Leiderman. He's a Neal Rauhauser associate suing Patrick "Patterico" Frey on behalf of Nadia Naffe. Admittedly he looks respectable in the above photo. However, you can see what he actually looks like in this YouTube video.
If you take a real good look at him, he is what he is. A triple F in DFQ2 code speak.
He doesn't come across as very intelligent. That lines up with his being out 35 grand due to Commander X jumping bail.
According to his bio info, he was a public pretender for over six years. Isn't that special? I guess the money wasn't good enough. So Jason went into private practice. Apparently he will represent anyone no matter how despicable the crime. Ever hear of attorney Stanley Cohen? Leiderman has a similar kind of schtick.
Let's look at Frey. He cybersmeared Ron Brynaert as a violent SWATter without any proof. He even cherry picked that 911 audio report.
He should be disbarred for that. Period. Subsequently, Jay Leiderman should be disbarred for cybersmearing me while working with internet criminal Neal Rauhauser. The following is very bizarre and literally forces donkeytale to admit I am in the running for ARGTOZ blogger of the year. That's an acronym for alternative reality game top of the zeitgeist morning to one and all.
I'm almost over the flu but not quite, so the rest of this entry will have to be mailed in. Here are the crucial copy and pastes from a recent Jay Leiderman court filing.
60. PLAINTIFF is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that FREY had a persistent problem with supporters of his blog “taking matters into their own hands” and going after the targets of Deputy District Attorney FREY’S ire.
61. PLAINTIFF is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that in this case, FREY called PLAINTIFF, essentially, too stupid to attend Harvard University for any reason other than affirmative action (PLAINTIFF is African-American) and FREY told his sycophants where, exactly, on Harvard’s campus PLAINTIFF could be found.
62. PLAINTIFF is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that one FREY sycophant in particular, who went by the sobriquet “Socrates,” was, around February and March of 2012, close to FREY. Socrates was known as a dangerous and unstable harasser and he lived in the Boston area close to PLAINTIFF. This caused PLAINTIFF a great deal of emotional distress. She was forced to seek the protection of the campus police department and to make all of her Harvard information was made private.
63. Based thereon, PLAINTIFF feared for her safety, as she was informed and believes and based thereon alleges that FREY was “ginning” up Socrates and other sycophantic followers to potentially attack her and harm her physically.
Ok, everybody on three. 1... 2... 3: That's retarded! That's some pretty crazy stuff. This ain't Blues, fairleft, or Stu Piddy from Soapblox having a conspiratorial meltdown.
Jay Leiderman is meant to be an attorney and have gravitas, and not simply be some two bit, hack lawyer.
Ok, I gotta wrap this up. How better to do so than by posting some tweets?
After the udder failure of the Third Party "Movement" in 2012, for like the umpteenth time in US herstory, clearly, it is time yet again to trot out another shiny new political narrative. Since third parties have been no-hitted and shut-out in every single presidential election there ever was, it is high time for something different. But, if the history of the blogosphere is any guide, the political narrative will not change one iota, and of course, will be vigorously marketed once again anyway. The business of the US of A-holes is business, even on the pwog-bound internets, and the ruling jedi of the Townhall cabal are not only proven innovators but they are job creators, too. And sometimes innovators fail. But then they get themselves back up, wipe the splooge of bull hooey off their feces and jump their shopworn sharks right back into the race. (Sung to a chorus of "That's Life" as performed by former CIA-asset codenamed Lil Frankie) As everbohdee no, the current recession is severely impacting pwoggie bloggie donation streams (FDL just cut and/or laid off and/or retired their one man "journalism" editorial staff AKA cut n paste David Dayen) while infantile leftist bloggers have sustained several crushing blows to the collective skull during the past 2 years. First, the Arab Spring confounded and pulled their foreign policy tricycle wheels completely off, followed by the unlikely re-election with ease of a bought/paid for Kenyan Muslim socialist fascist evil child murderer drone meister, which occurred (much like the Black Satan's initial election) without a hint of support from the infantile left who nevertheless still claim to be his uber disappointed base. (h/t Little Matty Stooler. Did mommy and daddy buy Santa bring you a new Trike for Christmas, Little Matty?) But in the grand tradition of American libertarian business people, two famous internet entrepreneurs and occasional business partners, Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamscher are sure to find new and exciting ways to resurrect their flailing punditry careers. As the new year fiscal cliff approaches, there is mounting evidence of yet another covert, concerted effort underway to marry the libertarian right with the Fake Left into an effective business model for internet entrepreneurs to cash in. [Bonus holiday season conspiracy theory/jumping the shark alert] LOL.
When will the "switch" part of the fake left "bait and..." blossom into a useful reality? Probably never, if the 2012 election results are any indication. Check this out. There is now appearing at MyFDL a poster named "donbacon". He isn't being very transparent in identifying himself but the Firebagging insiders like CTuttle know exactly where Bacon is coming from, therefore so must Hamster and her little spinning cage wheels who moderate the site's dwindling traffic. Any way you slice it, Bacon's a definitive pork product, obfuscating his ideological stripes by making innocuous thread patter in order to ingratiate himself without revealing his true nature to the shilled. I definitely smell Cato/Koch Bros influence here. Makes an awful lot of sense when you think about it, knowing what we all know about Hamster's herstorical ties to the right wing. Cough. Grover Norquist. Cough. Why, I mean, by golly, if the Paultards coalesce with the Pwogtards, viola, they become an instantly impressive 1.6% of the electorate! Add four more years of solid refuse disposable blogging mixed with the rabidity of Glennzilla's anti-Democratic Party perseveration (now available on the Guardian!LOL) and all the indications are that this newly formed political juggernaut might hang onto .35 of one percent or even slightly less in 2016! Yay! Go team whiteysphere. Yur not getting older, yur getting grayer too. And yur progressive nads may be fraying but yur libertarian libido is still raging. [projection alert] [pinocchio alert] We can keep on blogging and retain our lily whiteness at the same time. That's something John Boehner and Grover Norquist might term a 'win/win'. The doomed loosers of the whiteysphere now have a political narrative that's almost new and nearly unique upon which to further devolve and disassociate themselves from reality: a fifth consecutive failed Third Party Presidential election strategy beckons. This, dear readers, is some impressive "stick-to-it-iveness." Some may call blogging an addiction, for which 12 step programs are now proliferating widely (ironically, treatment is even available online!), but I term this keyboard warrioring an irrepressible tendency to die in self-delusional self-defeatist selfishness. [projection alert] And if the Greens combine with the Libertarians, progressives will finally become that third party threat they have falsely heralded every four years since 2000, or 1992 if they are willing to now admit an affinity for H. Ross Perot back in the day. Bet on it. Third place is theirs for the taking. And that could be worth at least some semi-serious right-wing PAC schwag, sorta like Operation Accountability, only hopefully bigger. Last time they teamed up, Glennzilla and the Hamster raked in more than a quarter mil, of which hardly any went anywhere resembling political donations (the ostensible purpose of a PAC) except into their own bank accounts for "consulting fees" and "expenses." Maybe a half million or more could be a reasonable goal this time if they decide to re-team, enough to tide both over through the midterms at least. Surely, by then this diversionary tactic could at least buy time to come up with some new schtick to replace the currently frazzled anti-Obamaism, which fortunately will by necessity need to give way to anti-Hillarity by early 2014, in any event. Beautiful. I could see Glennzilla and Hamster once again laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of their delusional followers. Y'know, banks, those evil corporations run by banksters, but still where the fake left stash their PAC schwag at the end of the day when all is said and not done.
*** Donkeytale went back to FDL as a zombie (dogbreath). He made it to the top of the rec list, but mere hours ago that entry was scrubbed. Fortunately, I was able to dig it out of Google cache along with 34 comments. ~~ socrates, the true talent ~~ ***
Of Stollers, Greenwalds and Silvers: Compare and Contrast By: dogbroth Saturday December 22, 2012 6:25 am
Matt Stoller, in the third piece in his trilogy of stunningly clueless Salon articles, where he could have exhibited some wisdom by simply admitting he was wrong previously for jumping the third party Titanic, triples down on teh stupid by refusing to acknowledge the triumph of an emerging coalition of young, African American, Latino, Asian and gay voters, the very people who form the base for any truly progressive political force that will matter in coming decades. Stoller, much like Glenn Greenwald, instead targets a micro audience that consists primarily of those whose blogging habits have succeeded only in moving them to the outer polarities of political unreality and away from any possibly meaningful coalition with the emerging progressive majority.Yes, it is true that this emerging coalition does not yet control the political and geographic landscape of the US electorate and won’t for another generation as the time-limited white conservatives of wealthy privilege refuse to go gently into that good night, but just as sure as day turns to night, Texas will become a blue state by 2032 and the changeover will be complete in the House of Representatives as well as the Senate and the Oval Office. No, Stoller can’t even bring himself to acknowledge the non-white progressive electoral reality that will one day succeed in turning the House of Representatives blue. He ignores the historical realignment of the electorate and focuses instead on a subjective reading of a so-called narrative in the immediate aftermath, eschewing the long term demographic trend for short term political consequences that have not yet even begun to play out:
Every election is historic because history keeps moving no matter what we do. What truly defines an election as important is not the vote totals but the fight over the narrative that comes immediately after the outcome. These narratives are essentially stories told by various representatives of interest groups on television and in newspapers to justify their preferred policies.Here’s what we do know: Obama won a very close election with lower voter turnout than 2008 and a much more slender margin of victory. Democrats kept the Senate with a slightly more liberal caucus, and Republicans kept the House. Those are the facts……So don’t pay attention to what is being said on TV about why Obama won a second term. All we know is that he did. What that term means has to do with the policy fights ahead.
Contrast Stoller’s obstinate refusal to comprehend reality even after the fact with the prescient ability of someone who actually made a name for himself through the achievement well before the fact, Nate Silver, whose science-based analyses (as opposed to the personally biased punditry) were so straightforward and oh-so accurate for the second presidential election in a row. Silver appears to be from a different solar system altogether from the Stollers and the Greenwalds, who turn out to be nothing more than the dismal mirror images of the conservative Krauthammers and the Wills, outmoded and left in the dustbin of history by their own erroneous thought processes. Silver isn’t trying to tell us what we should think, he’s not trying to convince us to follow any ideology, he’s simply providing information so that we can think, and think clearly for ourselves to draw our own conclusions:
In fact, the once-powerful Blue Dog Caucus, a coalition of moderate Democrats, will have only 14 members in the new Congress. The centrist Democrats who once filled its ranks fared very poorly in the 2010 midterm elections, while others retired or were harmed by redistricting or by primary battles. Although Republicans have moved more to the right than Democrats have moved to the left in recent years, according to measures like those developed by Mr. Poole, the attrition in the Democratic Party has nevertheless contributed to moving the two parties even further apart.What that means is that if Mr. Boehner has a significant number of Republican defections, as he did on Thursday night, he will need to win the support of at least some liberal Democrats. And a bill that wins the support of some liberal Democrats will be an even harder sell to Mr. Boehner’s Republicans. For each vote that he picks up from the left, he could risk losing another from his right flank.
Perhaps cooler heads will prevail in these negotiations. But a majority of the incoming House – 237 of 433 members – will be either Tea Party Republicans or liberal Democrats, leaving only 196 members who are either Establishment Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats and who might form a functional center-right coalition.
Stoller, on the other hand, simply wishes reality were different so that he could remain relevant outside his miniscule sphere of non-influence.
Silver is painting a true picture of the present so that we can make up our own minds whether we wish to be relevant or not in a future non-white majority world that is in actual fact trending discernibly back to the left.
34 Responses to Of Stollers, Greenwalds and Silvers: Compare and Contrast
jest December 22nd, 2012 at 7:51 am 1
This should be interesting…
*grabs popcorn*
letsgetitdone December 22nd, 2012 at 9:31 am 2
I’m not prepared to debate your main thesis in this post, about Stoller and Greenwald ignoring the strongest long-term trends in American Politics, even though I do find it a bit hard to believe, because I only read occasional articles by both, and they always strike me as presenting interesting and morally relevant progressive perspectives. I also think that Nate Silver’s electoral and polling analyses are very perspicacious, and have read them with some care since way before he joined the New York Times.
However, critiques of some aspects of Silver’s work have begun to appear and I think this one by Cathy O’Neill is very much worth considering.
Also, having now read Stoller’s last article, I have to say I find your analysis misleading. Right after the passage from Stoller you quote, he says:
There are two narratives being told about what happened: One, Obama won this with a savvy, data-driven reelection campaign and a bare-bones, if effective, first term of policymaking; two, this election represents the rise of a left-wing, black, brown and young America, an America opposed to rampant inequality and racism.
These two narratives have important differences. The first implies a continuation of the centrist policies and rising inequality of Obama’s first term. The second implies a sharp left turn on policymaking.
So which one will triumph? My bet is that Obama will continue the policy framework he pursued in his first term. But this will play out with a series of struggles over political power. This is a list of some of the possible domestic flash points we could see in the next year as the agenda of term two is defined.
So, how is this ignoring the “reality” of an emerging progressive coalition which will be effective in the long run? It seems to me that all he’s saying is that the President’s second term will be defined by how he copes with some key issues and that how things work out on these issues is quite up in the air and may well not be resolved in a progressive direction.
AS for Silver, his claim that “237 of 433 members – will be either Tea Party Republicans or liberal Democrats,” is debatable depending on how you define “blue dog” and “tea party” representatives. For example, my representative is Jim Moran. Since Jim represents a progressive district, he cultivates a vague aura of progressivism. But in my view, he has no commitment to progressive legislation; but instead is committed to remaining uncommitted on pending legislation until the President gets behind something. Then Jim invariably supports it; whether it’s progressive or not. Is this “blue doggy”? Well, Nate certainly wouldn’t put Jim in the “blue dog” camp, and technically he’s right about that. But, nevertheless as long as the President and Nancy Pelosi are going along with a version of Pete Peterson’s deficit hawkism, then Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison have to figure that Jim’s going to be in the camp of those Democrats who will vote with the President to cut New Dealish programs and the social safety net.
In fact, I think most of the Democratic caucus is like that. So, I think the Democratic caucus isn’t progressive right now; and that it won’t be until it’s led by people, including the President, who haven’t been bought and paid for by corporate America. Somehow, I don’t see Nate Silver’s electoral analyses addressing questions like this. On the other hand a lot of Stoller’s writing does.
EdwardTeller December 22nd, 2012 at 9:36 am 3
After reading your essay twice, dogbroth, I can’t quite figure out why you lumped Greenwald into this……?
John Kelly December 22nd, 2012 at 9:52 am 4
Calling Gleeen Greenwaald a mirror image of the conservative gas-bags you cited is as stupid and fact free as you can get. If you have a grudge against a truth-teller of Greenwald’s caliber you best do better than this tripe. G.G. is one of the few excellent media critics, and factually correct American foreign policy critics that we have, and as such is a treasure. Policy instead of politics, truth instead of propaganda, excellence instead of mediocrity, knowledge instead of ignorance. Please do try again.
John
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 10:32 am 5 In response to John Kelly @ 4
You agree with GG. Others agree with Krauthammer and Will.
This doesn’t disqualify GG from gas baggerdom.
I will admit he is not as nonsensical as Stoller.
But his criticism is….criticism and it is all-consuming.
What is Greenwald’s solution?
Ron Paul? Citizen’s United?
Yes.
letsgetitdone December 22nd, 2012 at 10:39 am 6 In response to dogbroth @ 5
Greenwald’s solution for what? What, exactly are you talking about, other than your dislike of both Greenwald and Stoller.
xanthe December 22nd, 2012 at 10:44 am 7
…young AAs, Latinos, Asian, Gay …will form the base of any truly progressive force that will matter in the coming decades.
Do you not think that there are saavy Republican operatives who may capture these segments of the electorate as well?
I am an old lady white progressive, so I do not matter now – actually do any of us who are not in the ruling class, so there is a part of me that finds this vaguely insulting.
Any of these groups may turn to the right in a given atmosphere, especially given the craven posture of the Democratics.
Why do you have a ha** on for these particular writers? Have you examined their work thoroughly.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 10:49 am 8 In response to letsgetitdone @ 2
It might be fair to debate what constitutes your opinion of “tea party” and “Blue dog” versus “liberal/progressive” with respect to House members.
I believe he means “Blue Dogs” to be Democrats who are elected to office in red/purple and swing state districts as opposed to Democratic strongholds.
I find very little in Silver to be debatable since he is using mathematical models that have proven to be correct.
As opposed to Stoller and Greenwald, who are simply ideologically opinionated (or libertarian in Greenwald’s case) pundits targeting a certain audience with their own biased rhetoric that sometimes is factual and sometimes fantastical.
tomallen December 22nd, 2012 at 10:56 am 9
Silver analyzes polls. Stoller and Greenwald analyze issues. Of course they have different slants.
As you write,
Silver isn’t trying to tell us what we should think, he’s not trying to convince us to follow any ideology…
Some of us are interested in discussing both polls and policy. Perhaps you’d care to join us? What does your “progressive majority” of 20 years from now believe in? Aside from not criticizing Team Blue?
wigwam December 22nd, 2012 at 10:58 am 10
Stoller, on the other hand, simply wishes reality were different so that he could remain relevant outside his miniscule sphere of non-influence.
Bullshit!
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 10:59 am 11 In response to letsgetitdone @ 6
What are we blogging for, if not solutions? End of corporatism?
End of the surveillance state?
Greenwald lost me with his affirmation for Citizens United.
Then I researched and found he got major funding from the Koch Brother’s Cato Institute. Okay, now I get his support for Citizen’s United.
His agenda, fairly well hidden, like his support for Ron Paul, became much clearer to me.
I have no problem with him. He should just be more clear about his agenda. It is not progressive.
Stoller, I think I already clearly laid out my criticism of his two pre-election and one post election piece.
Let me just state again: not impressed with him.
I like him just fine, OK? At least he’s an actual progressive.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 11:04 am 12 In response to letsgetitdone @ 2
And yes, I agree that Silver doesn’t address the quality of progressivism or the lack thereof. That’s a subject for gas baggerdom, not science.
However, neither Greenwald nor Stoller address how to achieve better quality progressivism, either. Stoller tried and clearly failed, at least recently.
GG doesn’t even try. He is all critique all the time. Usually the same critique, over and over, leading nowhere that I can determine.
wigwam December 22nd, 2012 at 11:10 am 13
Then I researched and found he got major funding from the Koch Brother’s Cato Institute.
That research was on drug legalization.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 11:11 am 14 In response to tomallen @ 9
Right. Krauthammer and Will analyze issues, too. “Slant” is a very useful term for the four of them. They are slanted.
Silver’s slant is “data-based” and mathematical. He is not slanted,except towards the facts.
Where will the emerging majority lead in 20 years? Can’t really say, but I’m guessing that they will be leading, and changing, the progressive ideology more to their immediate concerns in the process.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 11:28 am 15 In response to xanthe @ 7
Choose to matter…
John Kelly December 22nd, 2012 at 11:34 am 16
Dear Dog’sBreath,
Nice try at sliming Greenwald with lies and his interesting and nuanced opinion on citizens united. A classic divide and conquer technique employed by smear-merchants.
Glenn Greenwald:
“I’ve never been employed by the CATO Institute. I have no ongoing or regular relationship with them at all and never did. I’ve been writing about politics for 6 years. In all that time, I’ve written a grand total of 2 articles – TWO: one advocating drug decriminalization based on its success in Portugal, the other opposing the growing bipartisan Surveillance State.
To claim – based on 2 freelance articles – that I am “of the CATO Institute” – as a way of discrediting me as some sort of libertarian – is a blatant, deliberate lie (are drug decriminalization and opposition to the Surveillance State now anathema to liberal politics?).”
Greenwald on Citizens United:
“I’m also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don’t see how things can get much worse in that regard. The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: “banks own” the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions — their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold — and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can’t imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There’s not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday’s issuance of this ruling?
Try again.
John
sevensalts December 22nd, 2012 at 11:35 am 17
What an utterly idiotic diary. Mathematical models are not facts. LOL, anyone who tries to claim that a mathematical model is a fact, really is no different than a hard core true believer religious nut job. If mathematical models were facts, than people would never lose money on the stock market. If mathematical models were facts, the Oakland A’s would win the World Series every year. The world is far too complex and unpredictable, with hidden variables and intangibles that human beings cannot put on any mathematical model. Nate Silver was accurate on one election. Big whoop.
Glenn Greenwald never supported Ron Paul. He supported Ron Paul’s position on warmongering, which is to the left of Obama. Greenwald is infinite the times a thinker than you are, so you should just apologize in your update, and then sit down.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 11:46 am 18 In response to wigwam @ 13
Drug legalization is a libertarian issue championed by the Cato Institute. He’s also received money from Cato on other occasions.
Ron Paul is a libertarian championed by the Cato Institute.
Citizens United is a pro-corporate money in politics that ensures the two party duopoly that progressives abhor.
Glenn Greenwald takes the same pro-Citizens United line that Cato Institute does.
Glenn Greenwald is a libertarian not a progressive.
And he is not transparent about it either, while at the same time he continually demands transparency from everybody else.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 11:49 am 19 In response to sevensalts @ 17
What would you call mathematical models that predict the eventual results with a stunning degree of accuracy, then?
John Kelly December 22nd, 2012 at 12:02 pm 20 In response to dogbroth @ 18
Please see my previous comment at # 16 with quotes from G.G. on this subject. You are, I’m guessing from what you have said and how you have said it, a DailyKos type “liberal”. Pro-Obama, no matter what atrocities he commits, which in and of itself is fine for the morally corrupt and fan based political observer, but…. it is when you attack a truth-teller with lies and mis-direction that you reveal yourself. Greenwald is quite clear if you read him regularly and no amount of blather from your Dog’s Bottom will change that. Nice try sowing seeds of doubt though. Too bad for you and your propaganda that Bing can be our thing or Google can be our friend.
John
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 12:04 pm 21
More on Greenwald’s non-transparent libertarianism:
The disgraceful and frighteningly uniform rallying for Ron Paul among bigshot talking heads on the so-called “left” has made further impressive strides towards cynicism, dishonesty and self-defeating idiocy in recent days. Glenn Greenwald uses his Salon column Dec. 31 to gush over Paul—while denying he “supports” or “endorses” him so many times that it smells strongly of methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much. Effuses Greenwald: “Ron Paul is the only major candidate from either party advocating crucial views on vital issues that need to be heard, and so his candidacy generates important benefits.” He goes on to dismiss principled progressive criticisms of Paul as “fallacies”:
The thing I loathe most about election season is reflected in the central fallacy that drives progressive discussion the minute “Ron Paul” is mentioned. As soon as his candidacy is discussed, progressives will reflexively point to a slew of positions he holds that are anathema to liberalism and odious in their own right and then say: how can you support someone who holds this awful, destructive position? The premise here—the game that’s being played—is that if you can identify some heinous views that a certain candidate holds, then it means they are beyond the pale, that no Decent Person should even consider praising any part of their candidacy.
Greenwald gripes (rather obviously): “The candidate supported by progressives—President Obama—himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested.” He then goes on to list a litany of Obama’s crimes (the drone wars, targeted assassinations, betrayals of habeas corpus, etc.), which “have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul.”
What a spineless and weasily argument! Pointing out the double standard among Obama supporters is just changing the subject—it lets Paul off the hook for nothing. Yes, there damn well are some things that are beyond the pale! Greenwald has it exactly backwards. By legitimizing his wacko far-right ideas among the “lefty” crowd, Paul’s candidacy is generating important detriments—which far outweigh any benefits.
Real liberals and progressives quickly pounced on Greenwald’s premises, focusing on his idolic praise for pseudo-liberal pundit Matt Stoller. For example, David Atkins, at Hullabaloo, quoted Greenwald:
As Matt Stoller argued in a genuinely brilliant essay on the history of progressivism and the Democratic Party which I cannot recommend highly enough: “the anger [Ron Paul] inspires comes not from his positions, but from the tensions that modern American liberals bear within their own worldview.” Ron Paul’s candidacy is a mirror held up in front of the face of America’s Democratic Party and its progressive wing, and the image that is reflected is an ugly one; more to the point, it’s one they do not want to see because it so violently conflicts with their desired self-perception
Atkins went on to say, “As usual, this is all so much hogwash… Liberalism is and has always been about intervention.” Even Gary Weiss, at Greenwald’s home site Salon, said that he “couldn’t disagree more” with the views presented by Stoller and Greenwald.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 12:28 pm 22
And let me hasten to add that I regularly read Greenwald and often agree with his criticisms of Obama and the Democrats.
And he also admits that he isn’t for candidates being transparent about their ideology…stating that liberal candidates would do better not labeling themselves as liberals…mmm….
john in sacramento December 22nd, 2012 at 12:30 pm 23
I’m really debating whether or not to comment, because in commenting, I’m legitimizing the diary. Ok, against my better judgment, and after reading the first two paragraphs, I can only think of one word to describe this:
Patronizing
blueokie December 22nd, 2012 at 12:41 pm 24
This diary reflects the success of Dim branding, as opposed to Dim policy, on the weak minded.
John Kelly December 22nd, 2012 at 12:44 pm 25 In response to dogbroth @ 22
And let me hasten to add…since you cannot bring yourself to reply to the gutting of your preposterous hit piece, it is transparent to anyone with critical thinking skills that you are a troll not worth engaging. My mistake. Goodbye Dog’s Bottom, better luck next time.
John
sevensalts December 22nd, 2012 at 12:50 pm 26 In response to dogbroth @ 19
LOL, another dumb response. That’s not evidence of anything. It only means he got the election fairly right ONCE. There was a guy who predicted the Kennedy election down to the popular vote by pure guesswork. By your logic, that guy’s method is a fact. Let’s see if Silver can predict the next twenty elections using the same mathematical model. Also, I see that you have no response to Silver’s assertions that the financial crisis was caused by “poor models”. He doesn’t even account for human biases like greed. LOL! Technocrats, like you and Nate Silver, believe that everyone is perfectly rational, that everyone’s behavior can be predicted by mathematical models, and that so-called experts are infallible. Sounds like religion to me.
xanthe December 22nd, 2012 at 12:57 pm 27 In response to dogbroth @ 15
I like this saying, dogbroth – almost as much as the Obama hope stuff.
Unfortunately, it is not my choice anymore. Yes – certainly in my own day to day life but not in the political mix. Obama in his machinations in SS and Medicare has written my working class demographic off.
Though frankly, after the departure of DeMint – will we see more of this until the Congress will not matter much either. That is why I seldom contact pols.
The only demographic that seems to matter to DC is the monied demographic.
RFShunt December 22nd, 2012 at 1:31 pm 28
A couple of questions:
Do you believe it is possible to identify a subset of policy positions of a candidate that you find correct and still not be advocating for that candidates electoral victory? Or does agreeing on positions A, B and C, while simultaneously disagreeing on other policies automatically mean you are calling for that candidate’s ascent into office?
Do you believe that a freelance writer can sell an article or two to a publication and still not be in agreement with that publication’s general philosophy? Or does a couple of sales automatically mean you take on every philosophical position of that publication?
jest December 22nd, 2012 at 1:51 pm 29
*refills popcorn*
*continues to be entertained by the exploding comments section*
*sips soda*
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 2:21 pm 30 In response to sevensalts @ 26
He got one election fairly right?
Silver predicted all 50 states and every single Senate race, as I recall. So, yes, he was fairly right.
Silver also predicted 49 of 50 states in 2008 (Indiana he missed by a single percentage point).
So that’s actually two elections he got fairly right.
he didn’t do as well in the 2010 midterm. He only predicted a 52 seat net gain for the GOP not the 63 he got. However, that could still be considered fairly right.
And Silver’s use of mathematical models, which he adjusts and discloses and his stated preference for rationalism over clearly biased punditry sounds like religion to you?
MMM.
timesthree December 22nd, 2012 at 2:27 pm 31
donkeytale returns from the dead.
RFShunt December 22nd, 2012 at 2:30 pm 32 In response to dogbroth @ 22
stating that liberal candidates would do better not labeling themselves as liberals
Thank you – It’s not often that you get a textbook example of what “taken out of context” means.
For those who what to see what I’m talking about, go to the video at about 5:00 min in. The quote that’s being taken out of context occurs at about 5:13, but watch the whole 2:00 min segment and decide for yourself if Greenwald’s meaning and message is what dogbroth is claiming it is.
dogbroth December 22nd, 2012 at 2:34 pm 33 In response to RFShunt @ 28
I think it quite clear that Greenwald is libertarian. Frankly, I think it quite clear that most of what passes for “progressivism” in the blogosphere is closer to a mixture of libertarianism and isolationist conservatism.
This all OK with me, but it would be more ethical if he were as transparent as he wishes others to be.
Greenwald has done quite a bit more than simply write two articles for Cato. Again, he is not being transparent. His drug “article” is in fact more like a book length research paper that took a year to produce. It is for sale in the Cato Bookstore.
timesthree December 22nd, 2012 at 2:37 pm 34
Hey donkeytale, ready to fetch that tennis ball again?
After first calling for progressives to dis-elect Obama, failing that he now wishes progressives to "hold Obama's feet to the fire." Shocking display of wisdom, that. Where were you in 2009-2012, Matt? Oh, making a name for yourself among gullible pwoggies with your wit and "wisdom..."
Remember Stoller's laughable bits in Salon the week or so prior to the election, both rife with the empty echo chambering of self-serving third party progressive cliches and bereft of any substance at all?
His first piece contained really nothing beyond a vote of supremely arrogant confidence in the "know it all" white middle class progressive elites who automatically assume the Green Party is an "optimal" choice, in Greenwald's typically ridiculous description.
Stoller, who has written some excellent stuff at times, succumbs to his audience's childlike desire for affirmation. He is playing a bad joke on a deceived people's expectations. A bad joke that continually flies right over the heads of the Obi-wan Kenobis of the Whiteysphere.The big lie is that Obama designed the system that increased US income inequality in 2009-10. An honest appraisal would and (already has! several times over!) confirmed that the recession inherited by Obama caused the acceleration of income inequality, a process that is thirty years (at least) in the making under conservative Reaganite Washington DC hegemony.
That's right, under Barack Obama there is more economic inequality than under George W. Bush. And if you look at the chart above, most of this shift happened in 2009-2010, when Democrats controlled Congress. This was not, in other words, the doing of the mean Republican Congress. And it's not strictly a result of the financial crisis; after all, corporate profits did crash, like housing values did, but they also recovered, while housing values have not.
This is the shape of the system Obama has designed.
These, of course, are the same type of bald faced misrepresentations of historic fact and distortions that formed the basis of Mitt Romney's failed campaign. Surely, this line of persuasion works so much better when the Great White .35 of One Percent Shark Jumpers attempt it.
But, of course, the third party progressives always have all the answers, always after the fact (AKA Monday morning armchair quarterbacking) and most importantly they have no way to implement them so will never suffer the opportunity to be proven full of shit, in any case.
Yet somehow, someway (never defined) after we elected Mitt Romney, the more intelligent, more noble great .35 of one percenters' magic beans would right the ship of state just as soon as the electorate, including the roughly half on the right who absolutely hate Obama, not to mention Stoller and his magic beans brigade decide to (again by magic) place the reins of government andbusiness into the knowing hands of the progressive jedi.
But can a third-party candidate win? No. So what is the point of voting at all, or voting for a third-party candidate? My answer is that this election is, first and foremost, practice for crisis moments. Elections are just one small part of how social justice change can happen. The best moment for change is actually a crisis, where there is actually policy leverage. We should look at 9/11, Katrina and the financial crisis as the flip side of FDR's 100 days or the days immediately after LBJ took office. We already know that a crisis brings great pressure to conform to what the political establishment wants. So does this election. We all know that elites in a crisis will tell you to hand them enormous amounts of power, lest the world blow up. This is essentially the argument from the political establishment in 2012. Saying no to evil in 2012 will help us understand who is willing to say no to evil when it really matters. And when you have power during a crisis, there's no end to the amount of good you can do.How do we drive large-scale change during moments of crisis? How do we use this election to do so? Well, voting third party or even just honestly portraying Obama's policy architecture is a good way to identify to ourselves and each other who actually has the integrity to not cave to bullying. Then the task starting after the election is to build this network of organized people with intellectual and political integrity into a group who understands how to move the levers of power across industry, government, media and politics. We need to put ourselves into the position to be able to run the government.
Perhaps the worst aspect of Stoller's commentary is its dishonesty. Well, to be fair, it could also be considered stupid, and it surely has been so considered, which makes him look only slightly better than his dishonest self. As anyone who follows fake lefty blogging about economics and finance can attest, it's a very thin line between stupidity and dishonesty and it scarcely matters which is which: teh stupid is the norm and dishonesty among the .35 of one percenters doesn't even register anywhere with anyone anyway, at least prior to entering the gates of Pwoggie Heaven.
Here is Stoller going gah-gah-goo-goo over a supposed deal Paulson offered Obama prior to the inauguration that included TARP funds release being tied to forced mortgage principal write-downs.
But the primary policy framework Obama put in place - the bailouts, took place during the transition and the immediate months after the election, when Obama had enormous leverage over the Bush administration and then a dominant Democratic Party in Congress. In fact, during the transition itself, Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson offered a deal to Barney Frank, to force banks to write down mortgages and stem foreclosures if Barney would speed up the release of TARP money. Paulson demanded, as a condition of the deal, that Obama sign off on it. Barney said fine, but to his surprise, the incoming president vetoed the deal. Yup, you heard that right - the Bush administration was willing to write down mortgages in response to Democratic pressure, but it was Obama who said no, we want a foreclosure crisis.
Of course, had Obama accepted that deal (if it was even truly offered. Barney Frank was the source for this report and Frank can be as slippery as any of them when ducking and re-assigning blame) Stoller and Greenwald would have blown their gaskets over this shady, non-transparent backroom deal between the Bush lame ducks and the incoming Obama PTB prior to the changing of the guard. And naturally, the stock and bond markets would have absolutely tanked worldwide had the Government forced red-blooded, God-fearing capitalist corporations to re-arrange their balance sheets against their collective will.
Full disclosure, I too believe that mortgage writedowns should have been a major part of the solution but I also do not own stocks or bonds and therefore would have had no problem with the resulting worldwide financial market crash and multiple trillions of lost wealth that remarkably Stoller either doesn't recognise or can't fathom. The stupidest part of Stoller's argument is, that by not forcing mortgage asset write-downs, Obama somehow is at blame for $7 trillion in lost wealth of the middle class. Uhhm, dude. The mortgage write downs we both wanted necessitate also lowering of principal on the loans, which means the loss of individual's asset value in the process of "writing down" the mortgages anyway.
Here, I'll let one of the few cognitively healthy commenters on a typical pwoggie echo chamber called "Naked Capitalism" (run by a wealthy, narcissistic ex-Goldman-Sachs reach beach no less) explain it to the ignorant herd:
Yves appears to let her hatred for Obama get in the way of math.She is comparing part of $700 Billion in Tarp Funds of which I believe $350 Billion was spend on tax cuts for nation; with the $7 Trillion Dollar wealth gap.
Even accepting her argument even if every dollar was spent on the "wealth gap" it would not have made a significant dent in the overall situation. However, the remaining tarp funds would not have been available to juice the economy.
Further, most people experienced much more than a 10% drop in housing prices. Further, this $7 Trillion Dollar wealth gap was created by an artificial bubble. An overheated market created housing values that people now use to suggest that somehow they have lost this wealth.
However, anybody that did not sell their house and did not buy another inflated home would have never experienced this wealth anyway. It was a bubble.
Once the bubble burst-as it did-housing values would have had to retreat back to normal levels.
So if you allow your hatred to shine through so that you can make Barack Obama be worse than the moral equivalence of George Bush who actually lied us into war killing over 3,000 American Citizens unnecessarily and injuring over 50,000 many of whom we will have to support for the rest of their lives, then you can bring yourself to making these riduculous comments.
Truly, Ives, I don't know why I keep coming to your site. You have truly jumped the shark. Of Course this reply should have been addressed to Matt Stoller.
In his second Salon nonsense, Stoller revises his own argument, probably because he recognised his first attack lacked a sense of political realism:
The President does not sit in the Oval Office and play a video game where he governs the country. The Presidency is constrained by the various checks and balances in our governance system, notably a partisan opposition and public opinion. Under Obama, that partisan opposition has been a right-wing Republican force buttressed by well-funded Tea Party activists. This has made it far easier for Obama to implement conservative policies. Under Mitt Romney, the Democrats will be far more likely to oppose Romney from the left, and the public will be much more likely, as it was under Bush, to mistrust its President and demand social justice.
Yes, the movement of the country to the right makes it easier for Obama to implement rightwing policies, just as the movement of the country left under Nixon made it easier for Nixon to implement liberal policies. I detailed this phenomenon, usually meme-ified on the fake left as "Nixon was a liberal" in any number of diaries leading up to the election, first in my now-classic masterpiece "A Tale of Two Dicks."
Of course. Any high school kid knows this already, that the President is inextricably bound to his Congress and the prevailing zeitgeist of the electorate. Only the infantile left and the Tea Party right believe that Obama is omnipotent, while at the same time blaming him for being what he is not. RIOTOUS! Straw man much, loosers?
Obama and Nixon accomplished what they could under the constraints of their times. Nixon effectively set the stage for the coming four decades swing to the right, which Progressives and their magic beans can somehow reconfigure (macroeconomically!) overnight even with the Congressional reality that change is hard and slow, taking decades to achieve.
Stoller doesn't account for this reality. He believes falsely, as do most third party progressives, from cherry picking a handful of issues based polls, that the US is actually a leftwing country (haha) and that Obama could have any policy he wanted 2009-2012. More stimulus? No problem. Except Obama asked for more stimulus. That he got any was a result of compromise and avoiding the filibuster. Why does Stoller believe the country is leftwing when only 20% self-identify as such?
From his delusional sense of deduction and progressive echo chambering, that's how.
Politicians can't ignore electoral preferences if they desire to be elected.
Stoller can and third party progressives do ignore political reality day after day after execrable day and then every four years repeating the same ignorance expecting a different result. And yes, the only way to "move forward" in Stoller's thesis is to ignore the fundamental reality and spin magical solutions ("woulda/coulda/shoulda") that are only available to amateur bloggers and paid pundits.
Historic troll donkeytale had been attacking Glenn Greenwald as being a fake lefty. I asked him for some proof since I had never thought about it and rarely read Glenn's schtick. Donk responded something about his being from the CATO Institute.
Aaaah yes, it is fascinating how many former wingnuts have become leading, so-called leftist bloggers since Bush was anointed President in 2000 by the Supreme Court. There was Arianna Huffington. Before her was Markos Moulitsas whose Daily Kos dominated the whiteysphere. The dude who owns Democratic Underground was (still is?) on Al From's DLC payroll. Maryscott O'Connor had a rage schtick against the right. I socratised her ass and found her posting support for lower taxes on the rich. For pointing that out and other thingies, my ass was allegedly reported by MSOC to the FBI for cyberstalking. But I digress.
I am not one to reinvent the wheel, at least those of others. My own wheels are obviously a whole other matter. Anyway, Mr. Mark "Brutal Honesty" Ames of The Exiled thoroughly exposed Greenwald in this "Koch Whore" entry. You can read it for youseselves and see how much of a fake Greenwald has been proven to be.
Donkeytale exposed myself a number of months ago. Many have wondered how the heck I was able to hone socratisation into an art form. It's basically googlification 101. So last night I started searching for good links for this diary. The above is probably the best. From one of the last comments, I then googled Greenwald with Matthew Hale. That led me to this Democratic Underground thread. From that link or perhaps from one included in the thread, I cannot remember, I saw a DU poster claiming Cenk Uygur as a former neocon. Most know who he is. He runs that Young Turks or whatnot show. As with Greenwald, I knew he existed but didn't know much about him or any backstory.
My initial reaction was the claim was disinfo. I've seen him in a video or two and he seems like a definite sweetie. (disclaimer: I am not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just don't want folks thinking I'm a sexist pig for only describing women as sweeties. I have tried my best to drop the sweetie schtick, but it's taken longer than expected. Thanks for your patience, youse dear wonderful, gentle, sweetie readers.)
(excerpt) Ratfuckery has reached a new level of sophistication. Coincidental to its further rise was the advent and enhancement of cable and internet media political discourse - the celebrity political pundit, or the Professional Left, along with the 24-hour news cycle - and the election of the first African American President.
Progressives sought love and comfort in the Leftwing writings and commentary of various pundits during the dark years of the Bush Administration, and - especially after Bush's second election triumph - many more talking heads emerged ... Many who had, until recently been practicing, full-on Republicans, themselves.
Seems there was a buck or two to be made [proselytizing] to the Progressives, and it might [have been meant] to divide and conquer [in their] true Segrettian fashion, but via the media this time. After all, these poor souls were crying out for representative media voices in the Wilderness to counter Fox News.
Ceny Uygur was one of those ratfuckers. A failed corporate lawyer and neocon with an enhanced opinion of himself and an ego as fat as his broad ass.
He, along with the likes of Arianna Huffington and Ed Schultz, all former virulent neocons, sought to tap into the low information end of Progressive voters - young people and disaffected Left Coastal unreconstructed middle class types who yearned to be hippies again (or even for the first time) who either had forgotten how to think critically along the way or who had never learned. Suffice it to say, these people knew nothing and understood little about the way the government functioned.
I'm in the process of trying to find an adult education course on reading comprehension. I don't recall from skimming through that monster entry where the author gave links and proof of her claims. I know it's true Huffington was a neocon or some other manifestation of wingnut. I have barely heard of the Schultzie dude. It is conspiracy fact that Moulitsas was a wingnut with family ties (see Keaton, Alex P.) to the El Salvadoran oligarchy. Internet predator Neal Rauhauser was a Republican. A quick glance at that blogger has my intuition saying she is legit and thus it's all true what she wrote about Uygur.
Her basic premise was Uygur was one of a number of right wingers who were unable to get their foot into the wingnut door. Those slots had already been taken by the Coulters and Hannitys of the world. At the end of her post, Flaming Emilia embedded the following, entertaining video.
Protester confronts Dylan Ratigan at Occupy Wall Street
From that, I located the protester's youtube channel. Most of the comments on his videos were nasty towards him, but I must say (see Grimley, Ed) the dude seemed to be right on target with his expose of Uygur's 'protest porn'.
And there's the rub. One cannot possibly confront fake lefties on their own turf. One will either be ridiculed or outright censored and banned. So it appears Cenk Uygur and Glenn Greenwald are 100% internet fake. I did not know that.
*** UPDATE *** Marcy Wheeler is garbage for a source. She tweeted to Patterico, "Thanks though, for checking in. More to copy and send to your boss."
How does a debate on her recent schtick turn into a Rauhauser-Kimberlin tactic? Do I think Patrick Frey should be out of his job? Yes, for the cybersmearing of Ron Brynaert. That's quite different from the crap Neal Rauhauser and Brett Kimberlin have been peddling. I also see Frey is claiming Wheeler is a friend of Brad Friedman's. I don't know. Sometimes both sides truly suck. That is what's going on here, imho. *** END OF UPDATE ***
what would Ed say?
Folks are probably wondering wtf Ed Grimley is doing as the top screenshot for this mailed-in entry. I just figured that look crystalises in a nutshell and straightforward manner without diction precisely every emotion one feels when reading anything to do with the Numbnuts and Breitbart cult.
The main impetus behind this diary is that someone has to do something before donkeytale clogs up this delightful blog with more mailed-in reruns of six year old entries.
Word is we now have yet another numbnut to add to the list to go with internet hack Karoli Kuns. Her name is Marcy Wheeler. She used to blog at FireDogLake with Jane Hamsher. Yesterday she piped in with, "Breitbart Folks Appear to Fake Violence in Lansing."
I don't have time to socratise her. Of course donk will pipe in on how he showed up at The Next Hurrah or wtf years ago to confront Nutrooters such as Dana Houle. He'll go on and on about how he was sandtrapped at Daily Kos. Donkeytale's major flaw is he thinks everything centers around himself. No, that is where myself and Al Franken enter the scene.
Anyway, before I digress, I did find this photo of Marcy. She's obviously a sweetie.
However, that doesn't give her the right to blog crap like she did yesterday. I went through that whole article and was left wondering, "Uhm, have ye got any fricken proof?"
We all know the Breitbart cult is full of insidious con artists and manipulators. But even a prostitute deserves protection. Apparently, Lee Stranahan merits such a defense. Or is the line even a pimp deserves protection?
I tried to find the original proof Lee was advertising his wife's uhm er skills. I've seen it before. However, Lee has put a block on the archive.org machine.
Last night I blogged about a portion of an Empty Wheel post on the assault on Steven Crowder in Lansing. Today I want to discuss the way it fits into a disturbing trend, in which politican partisans rewrite history for a gullible audience more interested in a politically convenient narrative than in fact.
For over two years now, I have watched as Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, and a small band of confederates have literally rewritten history regarding anybody who happened to report on them. In coming days and weeks I will document this revisionism point by point, but for now it is enough to note certain trends:
Hey, Frey forgot to mention Ron Brynaert. Is he tabling that specific cybersmear because he fears being sued by Ron? Perhaps. He's got zero proof Brynaert SWATted himself or Mike Stack. Frankly, I don't see what Wheeler's idiotic spin of a legitimate news story has anything to do with Bwett and Neal. And I bet neither does Patrick Frey. All Fatterico has proven the last year is that he's a public prosecutor who posts outrageous smears on a lowbrow, guttersnipe blog.
Meanwhile, McCain sent out an odd tweet to Ron.
Stacy basically linked to a Brynaert pastebin which included email contact between Ron and Marcy Wheeler. It had nothing to do with her piece. It was pure McCarthyism through proxy of accusing the accuser of accusing and cussing or whatnot.
Perhaps McCain and Frey need to better coordinate their cahootness. The Patterico attack on Brynaert has been an utter fail. The whole BK is a blogger assassin so hit the freaking tip jar schtick has become a total mess of an epic fail.
By the way, that Brynaert pastebin is actually a pretty good one.
So let's see. What else is on the DFQ2 agenda. Oh yeah! Here are two mailed-in current event updates.
A dude aged 22 killed two people, seriously injured another, and then took his own life. I haven't much to say on that. I'll let a sweetie named Rachel do the talking:
Obviously video games are not the sole cause of the violence problems in the US but one has to wonder if being constantly inundated with fake violence could have an effect on someone who is already suffering or developing mental problems. I dont think anyone is actually suggesting that we ban violent video games but I think there does need to be research done to see if there is a link and what that link might be. I think the next step would be to educate people and especially parents. SIDS used to be a rather large problem in this country until research was done and the nurses started the "back to sleep" ad campaign. The rates of SIDS dropped dramatically and I bet something similar could be done here.
I don't know why Rachel focused in on violent video games. Perhaps she assumed a 22 year old would be into those. For all we know, Jacob might have spent all his gaming time on innocuous racing games.
But she does make a good point. We have become desensitised to violence. Add in a tough economy and we should expect more of this. The source of violence can always be traced back to the ills of capitalism. Bet on it. Though for this specific story, we just don't know. Perhaps the nutjob was going through twinkie withdrawal. Say a variation of the twinkie defense. And if so, even that can be traced back to capitalism. These are the facts wingnuts don't want Joe and Jane Americano to consider. We are not the greatest. We are a cultural wasteland.
This is another interesting yet tragic story. A numbnutted Australian radio station made a prank call to a British hospital inquiring about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge. Apparently sensitive info was released due to the nurse's falling for the hoax. I'm not sure why that would have led to her to commit suicide. We'll have to wait and see what she wrote in that note.
This is the risk one runs by pranking. You never know when someone is going to end up dead. Imho, the most famous example of this pertained to what happened when trash talk host Jenny Jones surprised a guest. As CNN reported:
Amedure was shot twice in the chest and killed by Jonathan Schmitz, who learned in a taping of the show that his secret admirer was Amedure, not a woman. The Amedure family brought the wrongful-death lawsuit, saying "The Jenny Jones Show" was negligent in humiliating Schmitz, prompting him to kill Amedure three days after the taping.
Jenny Jones - The Murderous Crush Show That Never Aired by ThePowderfinger71
On March 6, 1995, Jenny Jones taped an episode called "Same Sex Secret Crushes" on which Scott Amedure, a gay man, confessed to his best friend Jonathan Schmitz, that he had a crush on him. Schmitz's response was mostly humorous as he laughed about that revelation in front of the audience. However, three days after the taping, Schmitz, allegedly upset over that incident, killed Amedure. After the murder made headlines, the producers decided not to air the show. However, the episode did air on Court TV when the network was covering the trial. Clips of the episode were also featured in the HBO documentary, Talked to Death.
Schmitz's history of mental illness and alcohol/drug abuse came to light during the trial in which Schmitz was later convicted of second degree murder. He is currently serving a 25-50 year prison term.
Jones and the producers were later sued by Amedure's family for neglecting to find out Schmitz's history of mental illness and substance abuse. Jones testified under oath that the producers told Schmitz that his admirer could be a man, but Schmitz thought that the admirer was a woman. Jones also admitted that the show did not want Schmitz to know the outcome of his secret crush. Amedure's family won the ruling and the show was ordered to pay $25 million, but that decision was later overturned by the Michigan appellate court because the producers were not responsible for what happened to the guests after their appearance on the show.
She stood quietly at the window. I had brought her to me to provide instruction. My life had become a mess again. The tangles of time,people,alcohol, madness.
For years I had struggled against myself, kept myself heavily secured in emotional chains, mental bondage, a slave to others. I had worked very hard against all odds to remain a failure and had failed even that test. Accidental success had only deepened my misery. There are no chains wrapped tighter than those forged by easy success.
She took the glass I offered her and sat down across from me.
"What was your first job?"
"You mean as an adult?"
"No. Your first job."
I thought for a moment.
"My dad was a gardener. When I was eleven he made me work with him Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all summer mowing peoples lawns."
Not a single friend of mine missed a single moment of his summer that year, I recalled with an acuity not diminished one bit by the passage of some forty odd years.
"Was your father the best gardener?"
"Not really. He did a lot of quantity over quality I would say. We hustled."
"Did you know this at the time, that there was a better way?"
"Well, sort of...the wealthy people always hired the nisei gardeners to tend their landscaping. The nisei were the best gardeners. Some of the designs in Beverly Hills or the old mansions in Pasadena...unbelievable."
"The nisei were interned during World War II. They seemed very bitter about it. They stayed to themselves."
I remembered a schoolboy crush I had on the daughter of one of the nisei in our town. She never returned my valentines card. Never even thanked me for the big heart shaped cherry sucker I left on her desk.
"Yes. They were born in America, in fact were among the earliest residents of southern California and yet they were imprisoned for years simply because of their japanese heritage." I always know my facts, even when the knowledge makes me unhappy.
"You have a lot of lawn. What is your favorite part?"
"The side yard by the patio."
"Yes, its lovely. You must make it perfect."
I looked at her.
"Do you know what is "perfect?"
I looked at her.
"Go work on your lawn until it is perfect."
I looked at her.
"You will know when it is...and when it is not. Perfect isn't a picture in a design magazine, no matter how glorified. It cannot be found in anyone's yard. The perfection I am talking about cannot be attained outside the place you inhabit. It cannot exist for anyone but you. The award winning lawn of your neighbor can never be your perfection."
I looked at her.
"You will find perfection only as a feeling which arises within you. Most important you must make yourself open and available to it. Otherwise, there is no path."
I looked at her.
"The goal of your life is to maintain your perfect lawn each day. As you do so and it becomes a routine habit, the feeling will transform into an attitude, an attitude which you may then bring into other parts of your life."
I looked at her.
"An attitude which you can only build one 'perfect lawn' at a time."
She rose and walked out the french door to the patio, then stepped back across the threshold.
"Its a big yard and there is still some sunlight..."
She left quietly without saying goodbye. I stared at the open door for a moment, felt a sudden heaviness pass through my body, then stood up and walked outside.
The perfect storm has ended. For the most part, Weinergate/SWATgate has been solved (see Rauhauser, Neal). Oh my, what a ride. We now return to regularly scheduled blogging. For those who don't care about the Boston Celtics, you can skip the following.
The basketball season is upon us. It has not been a nice start for the home team.
It's become more than obvious the Celtics are a mediocre team. As presently constituted, their ceiling is 50 wins with no chance of a title.
The elephant no longer even in the room is Darko Milicic, who Doc put on the bench behind obvious loser Jason Collins.
Darko: Seven Feet, 275 pounds, blocks shots and rebounds (also only 27 years old). Darko has been an obvious disappointment from where he was drafted. However, in my opinion he had great potential to be as good as Kendrick Perkins was during the 2008 championship season. His play might have been enough to turn us into a 60 win team with a decent chance to win it all.
He was the potential answer.
Now our only hope is if Danny Ainge can make a trade for a decent center. It will also have to be one Doc Rivers will play.
By the way, it looks like Paul Pierce is finally cooked. He has taken over Ray Allen's role of being overrated and overplayed. But don't hold your breath waiting for Doc to figure that out.
The C's might be able to turn on the switch. They've done that at least twice since the onset of the KG Era.
Some may be correct on the motivation behind Darko's decision to leave. His mom's health might have been the deciding factor. We'll probably never know the full truth.
I was just thinking how worse injuries to Erden and Stiemsma didn't prevent them from getting off the pine. It seemed like in Milicic's first game, he had five bad minutes and then Doc put him in the doghouse.
I see Jermaine O'Neal has been playing well. Sheed is contributing to the Knicks. One of them definitely playing well for us could have been the answer. I actually don't care who Danny Ainge gets, as long as it's this year and for someone at least at their level.
A Pierce-Gasol trade would probably help us if Jeff Green emerged. Yet Pierce would seem to overlap with Artest.
We basically have one of Bass/Sullinger, Courtney Lee, Avery Bradley, Fab Melo, and draft picks to offer. Before the season started, that was pretty good. I'm not sure what that will get you now.
It's embarrassing how so many of us got this season wrong. I think I said they'd win 62 games. I don't care how good the Knicks and some other Eastern Conference teams are. If KG had a competent center to help him out, we would certainly be fighting for the top seed.
My immediate recommendation is for Green to play more and Pierce less. That will help two-fold. Pierce will get his rest. Green will get so much action, he will not have time to worry and will improve.
I was also wrong about Barbosa. He should not be the backup point guard. That's for Jason Terry. Lee should also start with Rondo.
I'd place Barbosa as a shooting guard for five to ten minutes perhaps more depending on how effective he is.
It'll be interesting to see what Ainge does. Until then, it looks like this team will win one, lose one, be a 45 win team, a seventh seed type. If they excel, they are 50 wins. I don't see them capable of much more than that. Now if we could get KG a true backup, that would compel a re-evaluation of the Celtics' true prospects. In my honest opinion.
And to quickly add to that, I could have sworn Darko said something about not getting playing time being a factor in the divorce.
I don't know how sick his mom is or what it is. Perhaps she could have spent a little time in America and possibly even received treatment. Darko could have become something and not just a player wannabe. He might have finally become an NBA success with a ring and a PJ Brown A+ effort.
Danny and Doc messed up in a similar way with Greg Stiemsma and Semih Erden. If you want to keep those dudes, it gets done, period. Both players had a chance of greatness playing for the NBA's most storied franchise. Now they are mere tools on loser teams.
It's good to see other fans are starting to become more vocal against Doc's idiotic small ball. Wade and Lebron will eat that for lunch.
I have been at a tremendous disadvantage using a piece of junk computer for blogging. Thank God those days are over.
Nonetheless, I am now stricken with whocaresitis. The amount of convolution piled onto the basic story of myself, Ron Brynaert, and Mike Stack being cybersmeared has become astronomical. It's not my job to be Ron. I no longer stress over producing masterpiece after masterpiece. Ye know it's all gonna transform anyway into witty repartee between myself and historic troll donkeytale.
Yesterday we learned that Aaron Walker's lawsuit against Bwett, Neal, and Ron has been dismissed. It appears Aaron doesn't have a clue on Presentation 101 rule 27. Keep it short and simple. He puts in too much. For my case, he chucked in some 200 or so pages of kook rant that must have had Judge Rupp's head spinning. Apparently he made the same mistake with his current lawfare.
That being said, hopefully Neal Rauhauser's reign of terror has mercifully come to a close. If he ends up in prison, that will be icing on the cake. It is refreshing to see that his true psychotic nature has been utterly revealed. A while back Crying Wolfe tweeted that the SWATter had been fingered. I was skeptical at the time but there are indications that could be true. Unfortunately with blog court, most of the time all we really have to go on is third party hearsay.
Back in early November there was a monster story at LA Weekly concerning Patrick Frey's SWATting. It contained tons of comments.
Compliments go to SanguinariousRose for finding Neal Rauhauser's Anarchy-pushing Manifesto to overthrow the government on the Hidden Wiki right alongside the advertisement for SWATting Services. $5 to harass someone online; $10 to deliver pizzas and such; $20 for a full-out faux call to a person's Police Department claiming they murdered their wife. You'll just have to contact the FBI or us for the recordings which will prove their own friends corroborated this story and their goal of wanting to overthrow the government. Copy and paste the below into notepad. It's the original. ...
Thanks go to: @OccupyRebellion, @OccupyUnmasked, @LiberalGrouch # # Kevin Gosztola, Matt Osborne, Ron Brynaert, The Electronic # # Frontier Foundation, The Tor Project, ED, Anon, The Occupy # # movement as a whole, and too many others to count. We love you. # # # # No thanks whatsoever goes to: Western government, Eastern # # government, Republicans, Democrats, extremists of any kind, # # "security forces" of any kind ("we're not going to tell you how # # we keep you safe, you'll just have to trust us" - no thanks), # # the Tea Party, Lee Stranahan, Ali Akbar, Brandon Darby, David # # Bossie and "Citizens United" (yeah, okay buddy), Breitbart, # # Mandy Nagy, investment bankers, etc. # # # # The list of no thanks could go on forever. It's extensive. If # # you happen to identify yourself as partial to one of those on # # it, then consider yourself an enemy too. You are part of the # # problem. #
Uhm, Mr. Cheese-Whiz, I'm sorry to inform you that Rauhauser does not have the goal of overthrowing the government. He is either an FBI informant or his plausible deniability of being into insane lulz is true. Or perhaps there is a third option that faking as cointelpro is part of his job duties to promote some of his Nutroots buddies (see Anonymous, Karl Rove).
I can't vouch for SanguinariousRose or Cheeze-Whiz. However, if you read the alleged comment, it certainly does sound a lot like Neal Rauhauser (especially if you look at who SWATboy does and does not thank). The thanking of Ron Brynaert sticks out like a sore thumb. As does that of Matt Osborne.
One of the underpinnings of Frey's and Walker's Kimberlingate hoax has been to cybersmear Ron as the violent, historic SWATter. Neal Rauhauser also over the last year or so has gone out of his way to try to destroy Ron Brynaert. He did so at Daily Kos in a deleted diary I saved and reposted to DFQ2. He did so at his Breitbart Unmasked website. It's part of Neal's convoluted, internet predator strategy of sowing confusion.
I'm not trying to ruin the lives of Ron, Seth, and Mike. I am trying to help them. That's the ticket.
That may pass muster with a jackass such as Karoli Kuns. It does not with anyone possessing an open mind and a semblance of critical thinking skills.
The above with Neal thanking Ron is a tell. It's called Concern Trolling 101. Rauhauser has in actuality been an insidious promoter of Frey/Walker SWAT disinfo. Could all three be on the same team? Yes, in fact much points to such a theory being true. It has been proven a Dustin Farahnak sock puppet at Daily Kos showed Neal basic respect and supported his smear of Brynaert. Dustin is best buddies with both Frey and Walker. He contributes to both of their blogs, including Walker's Islamophobic hate site.
Another thing is clearly striking as one reflects on the above. What has been the point of all this? In Neal's Unabomber-like diatribe, he yet again pimped the idea he is part and parcel of Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street. He was exposed a couple weeks ago for creating the new Karl Rove/Anonymous, election fraud hoax. Neal was clearly working with Brett Kimberlin and Velvet Revolution on that one.
I truly believe my entry at FDL on that story was the impetus behind myself and donkeytale getting the ax. A front pager there under the name TBogg has direct ties to the Rauhauser milieu. Many months ago he deleted one of donkeytale's Troll Wars installments. Not only are we no longer allowed to post at FDL, all of our writings have been scrubbed.
Welcome to my world, donkeytale. This has happened to me at a number of places, primarily at Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. In fact, I only went to DKOS because DU had scrubbed my major work there exposing Brett Kimberlin and Brad Friedman run hoaxes since late 2004.
A quick socratisation of Karoli Kuns
This is gonna be quick, so don't be expecting some old-school socratisation. Karoli Kuns is simply another fake lefty out for a buck. She's a marketer. I have two master's degrees. I am a thinker. I was a post-high school student for over a decade. I'm thoughtful. I'm also extremely humble. Perhaps most importantly, I don't make a cent off of anything I write.
Even though I could easily blend in with high brow thinkers, I have opened up a forum by which common, historic troll donkeytale can chip in with his regular guy commentary from a non-scholarly viewpoint. He does often get us sidetracked with sports talk. It is what it is. I'm just trying to point out that my humility also matches my intellectual greatness. What you see is what you get. I don't have any hidden agendas unlike the fake right/left dominating the internet. That grouping includes some horrid wench named Karoli Kuns.
Kuns's education consists of attending California State University-Northridge from 1976 to 1979. I don't see what her major was. Then there is this:
"Interests: Internet communities, blogging, social media, microblogging, politics..."
Isn't that special? That sounds kinda sorta not too shabby. But then there's this:
Groups and Associations: 1) All The Global Leaders (TGL) 2) Personal Branding Network ...
Karoli Kuns is a fricken tool of the state apparatus. Now she is busy kissing Neal Rauhauser's ass since somewhere in her peanut sized brain she got the notion that this is a good career move. It might be. I highly doubt it.
Perhaps the most utilised, internet marketing schtick is the branding of oneself as a right or left wing citizen activist. These people tend to be nothings in real life with little to no academic background to justify their talking head status. Yet somehow they are still able to carve a niche in the sewer known as the blogosphere. Sometimes it is difficult to know which side they come from. Some such as Lee Stranahan and Arianna Huffington have juiced both sides of the political divide.
Such numbnuts are simply feasting off of America's proclivity to pledge their non-worthiness + money to various cults of the personality.
From Karoli's about page at her boring blog: In addition to my work with online communities, I am also a self-employed employee benefits consultant and administrator.
That doesn't sound very leftist to me. For all we know, she does that work on behalf of corporations. It sounds like me, me, me and money, money, money. It sounds like anything but the strong thinker and citizen activist she peddles herself as.
I do appreciate she put up a picture showing what she really looks like.
That's quite different from the first one or this next one that also makes her look like a sweetie.
This isn't a sexist schtick either. Today I tweeted the same treatment to intrepid, cantankerous, edgy, and a bit nutty Ron Brynaert.
Donkeytale on @ronbryn: "I'm convinced its that little half smirk of his that draws the Twitter feeders to him."
This is what donkcheese was referring to:
I too like that one. Ron's previous version was also very good. Unfortunately, Ron had forgotten to comb his hair.
Personally my favourite Ron picture is the following. Apologies for not being able to locate a larger version.
But I digress.
For anyone who wants to see how f'ed up Karoli Kuns is, they should read this:
Anyone supporting Neal Rauhauser is an idiot. Period.
Karoli has me blocked, so it is impossible for me to confront her with documented proof Neal Rauhauser is a cyberstalking/smearing nutjob.
She actually had the gall to post, "From the moment the Anthony Weiner scandal broke, Neal Rauhauser smelled a rat, and as it turns out, he was right."
Retarded.
Aaah, and lookie here what Karoli offered up in early June 2011. (disclaimer: I nicked this tidbit off of Ron's Twitter feed.)
Does anyone remember hearing that Justice Thomas released his financial disclosures on May 27th? Here's a little tidbit for you: His disclosures indicate a direct cash investment of between $15,000 and $25,000 into Ginni Thomas' Liberty Consulting lobby firm...
I didn't include the hyperlinks in the above quote. If you go to those, one is a public relations piece put out by Kimberlin's protectourelections.org. The other is a pdf produced by Velvet Revolution.
In short, Karoli Kuns has zero integrity.
For anyone left who doesn't realise Kuns is an idiot, check her out in this short video.
She is the freaking poor man's Maryscott O'Connor, for crying out loud. She makes Huffington appear as a genius. That someone like Kuns can be achieving any sort of success via the internet is astouding. She's an internet fake! Bet on it.
Let's wrap this up by going back to the beginning. With yesterday's dismissal of Walker's lawsuit, it appears the story is finally over. Thank God!
The Team Breitbart cult and Team Numbnuts will continue to feed off of one another. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that both sides have revealed themselves as retarded looooosers. They are that to such an extent, I've decided to dust off one of DFQ2's most requested images in my own mind. To both sides, this Bud's for you:
Of Stollers, Greenwalds and Silvers: Compare and Contrast
Obviously video games are not the sole cause of the violence problems in the US but one has to wonder if being constantly inundated with fake violence could have an effect on someone who is already suffering or developing mental problems. I dont think anyone is actually suggesting that we ban violent video games but I think there does need to be research done to see if there is a link and what that link might be. I think the next step would be to educate people and especially parents. SIDS used to be a rather large problem in this country until research was done and the nurses started the "back to sleep" ad campaign. The rates of SIDS dropped dramatically and I bet something similar could be done here.
