It's also been pointed out to me that it might be unclear who is saying what below in the copied and pasted comments. Unless it is stated as someone else, all comments were made by Dustin Farahnak aka The Scyphers Murder.
Uhm, an anonymous in the comments believes even my claim that Dustin was that poster is speculative. Perhaps. I am not out to staple my truth onto anyone's face. Nonetheless, I am positive they are the same person. One of my sources, haha I like the sound of that, has sent me links showing further evidence they are one and the same. I'll try to throw up a new entry covering those points. END OF UPDATE]
On the surface such an idea seems ludicrous. Yet nothing makes sense unless it's true.
Imho, the following two assumptions are accurate.
*** All four SWATs are related.
*** Weinergate is related to Everybody Blog On Brett Kimberlin... then donate.
The first two SWATs had everything to do with Weinergate. The plan was to frame Ron Brynaert with Neal Rauhauser as strawman. No way was Neal going to be taken seriously for too long. In fact, he was banned by Daily Kos for the excessive numbnuttery displayed with this specific diary.
The most awkward aspect of the Team Breitbart hoax has been their shift from blaming the SWATs on Ron and Neal to pushing the absurd idea they have been masterminded by Brett Kimberlin.
That makes no sense. Kimberlin had nothing to do with Weinergate.
Lately there's been some bizarre back and forth between Brooks Bayne and his Trenches with Patterico and Stranahan. It's a diversion from understanding the truth. Bayne was going on about there being a proven association between Mandy Nagy and Neal Rauhauser. He was called on it and asked for proof. He feigned ignorance of having made any such claim. Apparently he scrubbed his tweets. This stupid fight between Bayne, the self-described Federalist, with the neocon, hoaxing Team Breitbart seems to be staged and is most definitely a limited hangout.
I don't doubt too much that Neal has been working with Team Breitbart the whole time. But to understand that is more likely true than not, one needs to stop wasting time jumping into rabbit holes.
This will be a two-parter. Hopefully by the end people will see that this theory is not off the wall. In this part one, a working relationship will be proven to have existed between Rauhauser and Team Breitbart's Dustin Farahnak. In part two, we will look more into the specifics of Rauhauser's "Weinergate" and how it morphed into SWATgate.
On July 29, 2011, Neal Rauhauser posted a smear piece on Ron Brynaert titled, "Ethical Dilemma: Harassed By A Confused Man." That was on the Daily Kos. It is no longer available. I don't believe it's anywhere on the web, including the wayback machine.
I didn't become aware of Weinergate and Rauhauser's DKos conspiracy theory until around early August. I then saved as much as I could. One item was the above mentioned hit job on Brynaert. I'll copy and paste that now, so everyone has access to it.
Ethical Dilemma: Harassed By A Confused ManAt Daily Kos, comments are not deleted even when diaries are. However, unless one has access to direct links, it is extremely difficult to find them. However, since I have the original via Google cache, those links are readily available.
July 29, 2011 by Stranded Wind (Neal Rauhauser)
I was harassed online by a mentally ill man last fall during the midterm election. The person in question is a right wing conspiracy theorist, he’s apparently stalking one of my female contacts here in D.C., and he generally makes a nuisance of himself with anyone who makes the mistake of interacting with him, be they friend or foe.
Another confused person full of opinions and theories has popped up in the aftermath of the stalk and smear operation aimed at Congressman Weiner. This guy used to be a journalist, but something changed for him last fall, and he now spends all his time online sharing what are obviously paranoid delusions.
I did make the mistake of interacting with him briefly, before I determined he was unwell, and now I think my new pal, Patterico, or one of his crew are purposefully winding this guy up and pointing him my way. This is, to my mind, a deeply sleazy sort of thing to do, and it goes double in this case because I warned him this guy was unwell and fragile clear back at the end of June.
Even so, I’m pretty tired of having my name drug through the muck, and I’m wondering what the right response is here.
The guy who was bothering me last fall is a man named Patrick Swift Read, a resident of Arlington, Virginia, and his nom de plume is @SwiftRead. He spent a lot of energy last fall smearing me as a George Soros operative, or maybe I’m funded by the Clintons, or some secret New World Order cabal. His “thinking” was just a bit sharper than street mumbler grade ranting.
I’m not terribly kind to Patrick; one of his associates, a man named @GregWHoward made a great show of having discovered where my ex-wife and kids live, and was otherwise a creepy menacing asswipe.
Both of these got their comeuppance, first getting savagely gnawed by a pack of beandogs, and then Howard and Read did some truly heinous things to one of the female organizers from their group and now they both seem pretty well discredited.
This new situation is a little different. Patterico I want to see fired from his Deputy District Attorney job, barred from practicing any sort of law, sued to the point of bankruptcy, or criminally charged. Better yet, all five of these would not be sufficient for this tiresome little punk. The motivation, briefly, is that he used to spend his time vigorously defending that little creep James O’Keefe, and his behavior of late seems to indicate he had a hand in the stalking and smearing of Congressman Weiner.
But this other guy, which he or his associates seem to be manipulating is another matter. Patrick Read is vile and dangerous, but this guy just seems to miss working in journalism. He likes to go and nose around, teasing out details and writing them up. But now that things have changed for him I think he has trouble telling when he has actually found some interesting pattern of behavior, versus just thinking he is on to something.
I publicly suggested on Twitter that he needed to go talk to a friend or family member about what he was experiencing, and he took this to be me threatening his family. Nothing could be further from the truth and I stand by my suggestion: when it’s hard to tell what is going on it is best to seek outside advice.
That sort of outside advice is what I am seeking here. If this were some random annoying and/or dangerous right winger like Patrick Read or Patterico I’d put a bunch of his information in this diary so people could go find and torment him. If I were being truly evil I could even send a link to the diary to those rascally beandogs, who are the internet equivalent of a painful rash when they take an interest in someone.
But I just don’t have the time or the temperament for such things. If people are unethical or criminal I often develop the urge to press the SMITE button on my keyboard. But this is not one of those times … so I eagerly await your wise advice, dear Kossacks.
I'd like to introduce everyone to The Scyphers Murder, my favorite source of pro-Breitbart talking points here on DailyKos. See below ... unless they've all been hidden already.
You can right click for new windows. Please take note that Ron posted as edkra, and Dustin Farahnak posted as The Scyphers Murder. It is fact that was Dustin. Mandy Nagy confirmed it over the phone. I'll copy and paste mostly Dustin excerpts.
tip jar
Maybe [Ron Brynaert] and [Neal Rauhauser] have some common ground, or are relying on the same source who is sending [them] in different directions.What's disturbing is Pat Frey's behavior
What kind of affiliation to Kimberlin (a public figure, mods) [does Ron] have? Honest question. And why does everyone freak out when I ask it? If the answer is none, just say none.
It was Neal Rauhauser who tied Weinergate into having something to do with Brett Kimberlin. He implied I was Dan Wolfe. He said I was working with Patrick Frey, Mike Stack, and Andrew Breitbart to destroy Anthony Weiner.
His were some of the most absurd allegations in internet convolution history. This is why I believe Rauhauser was a deliberate strawman for Andrew Breitbart's benefit. He wasn't even trying to make sense. Dustin Farahnak:
Sorry, but this accusation probably is a lie...Dustin then made one of the most surprising comments ever, one which was a tell he was actually in cahoots with Neal.
I've seen no evidence to support it...
Remember, Stranded Wind is the guy demanding photos of Mr Frey's wife while talking about his support for a violent felon, Brett Kimberlin. That's downright disturbing. He's accused Patrick of all manner of things over the past several weeks, and he has never shown a single piece of evidence for it. All we have to go on is Stranded Wind's word, but Stranded Wind admits to engaging in disinformation campaigns on twitter.
Just be careful before you assume that Patrick Frey is doing any of the million things this diarist has accused him of doing. I don't know if Stranded Wind has strong evidence to back up his claims. If he does, I sincerely apologize to him.WTF? Why not simply point out how ridiculous Neal's diaries had been, and that none of it was true? If you're Dustin Farahnak, why leave open any possibility Neal was writing the truth about Frey being the mastermind of Weinergate or any of the other junk?
Dustin didn't destroy Neal, because his main objective was to promote the idea of Ron Brynaert as a mentally ill, SWAT caller. The hoax was starting to push away from Neal Rauhauser being an obvious supertroll to the idea that Brett Kimberlin (as funded by Soros and Streisand) was the true menace.
The SWATs had taken place a month earlier. We now know Ron's voice was mimicked from his only available internet interview. Dustin's job was to promote the idea Ron was capable of violence and working for Brett Kimberlin. To help that along, he took it extremely easy on Neal.
Aaron Walker would not become involved until after my case technically should have ended on November 14th. Aaron had no part in the hoax at that juncture. More from Aaron's co-worker Dustin:
And I'm also here because Stranded has treated Brett Kimberlin as a trustworthy source, and used Brett's word to smear an innocent Kos Diariest that Brett outed.
Brett Kimberlin is not an honest man. He is a con artist who preys on democrats with stories that always implode. Anyone who believes him needs to be informed.
Yes, I'm primarily interested in Stranded's commentary because he was relying on Brett Kimberlin, whom I am very interested in setting the record straight about and was a source for his earlier discussions about this story.Ron didn't know at the time he was being set up as a patsy for the two SWATs, but he did realise Dustin and Neal were creating a controlled opposition. Ron said:
bahDustin was acting as Frey's surrogate prosecutor. He wanted to give the impression he was sincerely asking a stranger in Neal to admit his source for all the convolution was Brett Kimberlin. Now it's obvious, at least to me, that Neal and Dustin have been on the same team the whole time. Dustin continued:
It's all a game...
StrandedWind spreads confusion.
The Scyphers Murder and other trolls at Daily Kos spread disinfo and attack him so that everyone thinks it's a pie fight.
Neal Rauhauser is vile and spreads lies, because he emulates Karl Rove tactics.
Please stand up for justice and stop this thug...and don't fall for Dustin, the lying smearing troll who is behind the Draw Muhammed Day blog.
Neal gets away with this crap because he works with pretend conservatives on the right. He punked Greg W. Howard WITH Andrew Breitbart...and is probably working with him on this.
Seriously, I do not work for Stranded. I'm asking him respectful questions, at least as respectful as I can manage (I got really ticked off at one point).After Ron asked him yet again to give up the act, Dustin replied:
I'm not trying to confuse anyone, I'm not trying to aid him in lying or telling truth or anything at all. I am asking questions because at some point his line of thought and my line of thought took a major departure and I think knowing who or what diverted him would be very helpful info.
"I don't even think anyone online really knows who you really are."To repeat from earlier, Mandy Nagy confirmed by phone that Dustin was posting as The Scyphers Murder. Team Breitbart is very deceptive. They run hoaxes. Ron pointed out that he never did "accuse Dustin of being in Al Qaida because he's Middle Eastern."
On that point, you're right, since you clearly don't know much about me.
It's very interesting that you're accusing me of working with Stranded when there is no basis for it.
You plainly are trying to sow confusion.
You[r] twitter feed shows you tried to accuse Dustin of being in Al Qaida because he's Middle Eastern, so you're quite a little man.
I don't threaten people and have never threatened you. Put up your evidence that I am a terrorist. Put up your evidence that I'm Dustin or working for Stranded Wind.
Rauhauser and Team Breitbart are disgusting. They definitely would have fit in well in Nazi Germany circa 1933-1945. It's the height of sadism what they did to Ron Brynaert.
Here's an example of how manipulative they are. There was a time when myself and Mike Stack weren't getting along. It was actually small potatoes looking back. It ended up becoming discussed in a "Team Breitbart" email chain. Mandy wanted myself and Mike to buy into the Kimberlin as Satan hoax. The problem is Mike had nothing to do with Brett Kimberlin, never ever. Thus, the hoax from the get-go was a fail. Nagy wrote:
Myself, Ron Brynaert, and Mike Stack were basically used by Neal and Team Breitbart to promote their hoax. The RICO angle was actually first launched by Aaron Walker as early as December 30, 2011. Check out who he cc'ed.
Aaron Walker can be confirmed as being a scumbag con artist. Today he wrote, "...each of the people who have [been SWATted have] either written critical pieces about Kimberlin, or have been accused of doing so (including Mike Stack)." Mike Stack has had absolutely nothing to do with Brett Kimberlin. Aaron Walker was never my attorney. Aaron Walker can rot in hell.
We have four more subthreads from the scrubbed diary to peruse for more evidence that Neal Rauhauser was part and parcel of the Breitbart cult. Remember, if we can link Neal Rauhauser to Dustin Farahnak, then indeed that proves Neal was working for Team Breitbart. I do not believe Kimberlin was working with Team Breitbart. That would make no sense. The theory is Rauhauser manipulated Kimberlin, while Team Breitbart manipulated myself, Mike, and Ron.
A little background
Patrick Frey clearly doesn't add up. He appears to tweet and blog during his work hours. But it's not even that which is most bizarre. It's the topics he covers.
Just days ago he was covering someone named The Jester. Why would a public prosecutor evoking the image of a middle of the road neocon get into blogging on such convolution?
Why did he blog so much on the craziness surrounding Weinergate sock puppets? Why has he carried so much water for Andrew Breitbart? There's no way he did that for free.
It's one thing to see Brad Friedman, Fintan Dunne, or Mike Rivero writing strange crap. But a public prosecutor with a real job? That's what I'm talking about.
Neal Rauhauser was also too over the top with his Weinergate involvement. Neither Neal nor Frey were blogging in an organic manner. That the two became intertwined in some form of Battle Royale de Convolution and so quickly tells me the whole fight was staged. Dustin Farahnak's comments on this scrubbed diary back up this theory. Dustin is basically Patrick Frey's bitch.
To sum up so far: Rauhauser made smears on Ron Brynaert as being completely unhinged. Dustin showed up to agree. Dustin's task was two-fold.
1) Portray Ron as insane and capable of violence. Show solidarity with Rauhauser on this point while giving Neal basic respect and Ron none. Dustin also made sure to spin Ron Brynaert as being a Brett Kimberlin employee. Remember, this thread took place on July 29-30, 2011, well before anyone except for Team Breitbart knew much about the two SWATs. This diary was basically about Neal and Dustin planting "BK as the madman controller" hoax seeds.
2) Instead of simply pointing out the utter stupidity of Rauhauser's spinning of Team Breitbart out to get BK and Weiner, Dustin provided Neal with a clean exit to admit Kimberlin was his source. Dustin was minimising Neal's culpability and attempting to shift blame to Brett and Ron.
So you had strawman Rauhauser posting as a madman. At Patterico's, Frey was busy blogging on junk no self-respecting public prosecutor would have touched. These are the things Team Breitbart don't want folks to consider. They don't want folks reading Walker's crazy emails. They do not want it asked why on earth was a public prosecutor spending so much time covering sock puppet convolution which could never be solved? They don't want folks wondering why Mandy Nagy told Ron Brynaert that in her gut she felt I was working for Neal Rauhauser. Dustin wrote:
Weiner is yesterday's news, and hopefully the democratic party can find a better congressman to represent Brooklyn.One should be able to see with even just a smidgen of open-mindedness that Neal Rauhauser was Team Breitbart's best friend. He was the personification of a strawman for Patterico. As Dustin wrote:
What you're really interested in is whether Patterico was simply reporting on the actions of Dan and John, or whether he was somehow dishonestly helping them. So far, you have not shown this.
At the end of the day, I don't think anyone minds if people were trying to dig up dirt on a politician...We will see in part 2 how that was the spin; Team Rauhauser hated breitbart so much, they stalked Weiner on Twitter and then threw him under the bus in an effort to discredit Andrew Breitbart. That's a limited hangout! The hoax has been centered around Brett Kimberlin the whole time. The obstacle Neal, Dustin, and the others had to resolve was how to shift the story from Neal and Beandog trolling towards Brett Kimberlin trying to shut down right wing freedom of speech. They certainly figured that out. Thankfully, though, the truth is emerging and their cash cow is finally losing its juice.
...what if he planted evidence of a framing of Weiner being hacked, while Weiner wasn't hacked? What if someone (again, who hates Breitbart apparently) wanted to prove hackers set Weiner up, and Weiner confessed, ruining the effort?
Now it's easy to see why I was included in Rauhauser's ramblings. I was the patsy glue used to morph perceived sinister activities from Rauhauser to Kimberlin.
However, there's a fundamental problem with that shift. Mike Stack had nothing at all to do with Brett Kimberlin. It makes no sense to argue BK as behind the SWATtings precisely because of Mike.
maybe this is just too freaking obvious
Someone asked Neal why he didn't just break off contact with Ron and get a restraining order. Rauhauser replied:
nope...Like clockwork Dustin continued pushing forward the hoax narrative that Kimberlin was behind everything with Ron as his goon. Dustin made it seem Neal was simply misguided because of his source Brett Kimberlin. Yet Ron wasn't cut any similar slack when he messed up using BK as a source. That's because the cash cow depended on the lie that BK ordered the SWATs with Ron making the calls. More from disinfo astroturfer Dustin Farahnak:
I have continued to cover Patterico because I am relatively certain this guy is a key component to Breitbart's smear machine. I haven't said a peep to this other guy since about June 25th, but someone keeps winding him up, and that is likely either Patterico or one of his cronies.
I don't think this story is really dying. I think the Weiner part of it is dead, but there's some other thing that keeps growing and growing.Then came more strangeness from Dustin pointing to the idea he and Neal were working together.
Someone is definitely being a manipulative SOB. I've opined as to why I think it's one character, and why Stranded should consider what he knows that didn't come from that guy. But it's so hard to talk about this without sounding like a riddle.
Whatever he knows, I hope and urge him to take to law enforcement. He's following Patterico, so he knows law enforcement is involved already. If we're talking about the same disturbed third party (I wish he'd link him, but I'm new here... maybe that's not cool or maybe he thought it would make the situation worse) then I think Stranded is right in this case.
Someone is definitely manipulating other people, and it's harder for me to follow when half the players hold all their cards where I can't read them. This diary sounds serious enough to justify serious efforts to get anyone in need help.
So you admit you have no tangible reason to accuse Patterico at all.There was a lot of confusion put into that comment. I believe that sort of thing is done deliberately, in an attempt to confuse readers while establishing the two primary meme objectives. Dustin's goal was to set the bedrock for Kimberlin and Ron being behind the SWATs. It makes no sense Dustin was showing a con artist such as Rauhauser even an iota of trust for intentions. It truly doesn't.
You think someone is winding [Ron] up, and assume that must be Patterico or his cronies (whatever that means).
Anyway, you have named many people by name on here, without a shred of evidence. Now you know for sure of an actual stalker who harassed your friend, and he gets to remain anonymous. I assume this is because you know it's better to [be] careful before asserting stuff you're not sure about.
I get that you and Patterico have wildly different political views, but I wish you'd use that same responsible method with him, unless you have some reason to know Patterico is winding up your stalker friend, if you know that stalker is really doing something.
I also suggest you contact law enforcement immediately. Stalking and harassment are crimes.
Call the police.
Dustin denied being The Scyphers Murder a number of times. However, it is 100% fact he was one and the same. Mandy Nagy told me so.
More from Dustin Farahnak:
I agree with you that Ron is disturbed and could hurt someone.Ron called out Dustin again for being The Scyphers Murder. Dustin yet again denied it.
He particularly hates Patterico, though. He keeps claiming that everything Patterico said was 'obviously a hacker' even though it's obviously Patterico, in a stupid attempt to say 'this comment was too horrible for Patterico to say'.
I didn't realize Stranded was referring to Ron because I don't think anyone would seriously think they were allied whatsoever.
Anyway, it's really important that Stranded contact the police ASAP and explain his side of this.
I don't know what to believe. I just know that Ron used to work with Brett Kimberlin, that con artist I have mentioned several times before, and Stranded has mentioned his name a few times too as though this guy is trustworthy.
I wonder if we're all being spun by this con man. He's violent, so to be safe, it's a good idea for Stranded to call the police and just get what he knows out there. He may think what he knows is all minor stuff, but I sincerely and honestly urge him to just give them his information because there is more to this than he's aware of.
They might be able to use whatever it is that Stranded Wind knows but is unwilling to publicly share to explain his suspicions....
If you're talking about a disturbed stalker who we need to watch out for, I want to know who that is.
And I am saying that this other party, Brett, is violent. He went to prison for setting a bomb that blew up Carl Delong, then he told Mark Singer about this conspiracy theory about Dan Quayle that turned out to be BS just before the election. Then he got out of prison and started blogging about how much he likes Pat Buchanan.
My point: progressives cannot trust this man, and Stranded used him as a source a while back and has not really explained what info he got from this guy and what info he did not.
Brett is a public figure who told Kossacks he was exonorated, but he was lying. He then outed the guy who showed he was lying, and that guy has been named by Stranded as part of this Weinergate deal. When I've asked specifically how Stranded knows that, he censored the comment. I know he personally hid the comment because he explained why he did it to the other guy who said he's not supposed to do that to his own diaries.
You sound like you hate my guts, and you're clearly confused about who I am and the kind of person I am.Please don't take this the wrong way
If you look at someone who is 100% polite in 100% of their comments, and assume they are being polite to mask their hatred, that's on you buddy.
Dustin continued to give Neal Rauhauser the benefit of the doubt. He did so, because he wanted Neal's basic premise of Ron being mentally ill and perhaps violent to be taken seriously. In hindsight, Dustin was an idiot for writing such disinformation.
I'm not sure how Stranded's name is being drug through the mud, but I have tried to reach out to him about a serious mistake I think he made in how he evaluated one of his sources. I have repeated the point a few times, and now Stranded is convinced I'm one of the bad guys....It's beyond the beyond Dustin wanted folks to accept Neal's sincerity, despite his close to two month's worth of writing a smear hoax against myself, Mike Stack, and Patrick Frey.
I have to amend
I think I do know who on twitter is dragging his name through the mud, and I think that person sounds disturbed and needs help.
But I also want to note that person is not believable. It's sometimes hard to see that if you're the person being attacked. [Neal]: it's clear he's not telling the truth. He sounds crazy. If we're talking about the same guy, whose twitter handle starts with R. If you're upset that your name is being screwed with, take comfort that no one is going to buy anything R says.
It couldn't be more clear today looking back at Dustin Farahnak's comments on this scrubbed diary, that he was setting the table for the hoax claiming Ron Brynaert made the SWAT calls as ordered by Brett Kimberlin. That he showed so much respect to Neal Rauhauser in this thread, imho, proves Rauhauser has been part and parcel of Team Breibart.
About Stranded's accusation
This subthread consisted of one Dustin comment.
About Stranded's accusationHmmm: "I have no idea what Breitbart would have me say here. I admit I don't think he's nearly as horrible as many here do. I realize Stranded thinks he's a criminal. Fine. We disagree."
No, I'm not here to give you Breitbart's talking points and I would like to see any explanation of why Stranded says I'm doing that.
The two comments he took greatest exception to asked him to specifically explain two accusations he's making that I think he got from a bad source.
Asking someone 'hey, explain your evidence' is helpful not harmful. Especially if you ask someone who is right.
The questions were not trolling douchey talking point style questions either.
So anyway, I have no idea what Breitbart would have me say here. I admit I don't think he's nearly as horrible as many here do. I realize Stranded thinks he's a criminal. Fine. We disagree. But instead of answering anything I've said, Stranded has censored my comments and accused me of things.
That's not helpful.
That was a strange thing to say about Breitbart, considering he was indeed working for and supporting him.
I conclude that it's obvious Dustin was working with Neal to convey two things. First, that Brett Kimberlin was behind Neal's crazy postings. Secondly, that Ron Brynaert was the SWAT caller and made those calls at Kimberlin's request.
In hindsight, it couldn't be more obviously true Neal and the Breitbart cult worked as one in manufacturing SWATgate. Ron was the selected patsy. Myself and Mike were manipulated by Team Breitbart, so we'd be quiet and not point out discrepancies.
I believe Kimberlin for all his strangeness had nothing to do with any of this. I believe he was manipulated by Neal to go after Walker by reopening the case post-November 14th. I believe Frey and Walker knew beforehand they were going to be SWATted. Ron feels Mike is a fraud, but I am not sure about that. I believe Aaron Walker or Patrick Frey advised Erick Erickson to warn his police he might be SWATted.
I feel it's fair to say Team Breitbart has been comprised of primarily Mandy Nagy, Lee Stranahan, Patrick Frey, Dustin Farahnak, Aaron Walker, and Neal Rauhauser. They got away with their hoax for a very long time. Unfortunately for them, time has told the true story.
The Breitbart Empire is indeed decaying, and SWATgate is over. This story is now as officially dead as are the Walker and Frey blogs. They can keep peddling fake tweet fights. They can think long, boring Aaron Walker posts are still being read. They can believe Ali Akbar, Brandon Darby, Lee Stranahan et al have credibility. They would be wrong.
