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@Karoli: Weiner Truther? And Other Questions of Remaining Interest

Posted on | November 23, 2012 | 35 Comments

“I am here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused.”
— Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), announcing his resignation from Congress, June 15, 2011

Two days ago, I called attention to an article by Karoli, a Crooks and Liars contributor, who wrote an article in defense of Neal Rauhauser and Brett Kimberlin. I made this point:

Karoli’s excuse-making amounts to a Rauhauser-influenced conspiracy theory, as she accuses Andrew Breitbart, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Aaron Walker and others of engaging in a plot against Kimberlin and Rauhauser, which she calls a “Right-Wing Blueprint.”

This is important: Karoli is an intelligent progressive activist, a fluent writer viewed as a serious person, a valued member of the online Left. She is not a clown or a troll. Therefore, to find Karoli parroting Rauhauser’s version of events, including demonstrable falsehoods, is disturbing. Next thing you know, Karoli will be shouting into a webcam like Barrett Brown, ranting about HB Gary and Jennifer Emick.

Humor aside, it is to be remembered that Neal Rauhauser was one of the original “Weiner Truthers,” arguing that Anthony Weiner was the victim of some kind of hacker honey-trap masterminded by right-wingers. Rosie Gray of Buzzfeed, May 26, 2012:

Joseph Cannon describes the “weird subculture of bloggers”that sprung up around Weinergate.
Cannon was a more vocal proponent of the theory when the story broke, but “Their obsession with that scandal soon went way beyond Weiner, and perhaps even beyond conventional left-right politics,” he writes. “A very personal twilight war broke out.”
A major locus of modern Weiner trutherism is BreitbartUnmasked.com, a site “dedicated to unmasking the underbelly of Andrew Breitbart and his crew of rogues, criminals, wannabe journalists, various right wing extremists and the religious intolerant,” per its “About Us” section. Breitbart Unmasked features a large GIF of Breitbart’s face morphing into a mask, and lists the name of everyone in Breitbartworld, from editors of Breitbart.com to people only tangentially related.
One of its related Twitter accounts, @OccupyRebellion, regularly tweets about Weinergate and the alleged conspiracies therein.

Yeah. You criticize Neal Rauhauser, “Occupy Rebellion” is gonna get all up in your face on Twitter. So now look at this from Karoli’s article:

From the moment the Anthony Weiner scandal broke, Neal Rauhauser smelled a rat, and as it turns out, he was right. If you are Andrew Breitbart and information comes to you that there’s a certain loudmouthed New York Congressman who happens to have a propensity to flirt with young women online, you might give serious thought to providing a few “friendly” young women for him to flirt with.
No one doubts Anthony Weiner had a weakness for flirtation. Rauhauser doesn’t deny that. But that weakness was exploited by Andrew Breitbart in order to discredit and ultimately force Weiner into an early retirement. A few sock puppet girls, some provocative tweets, and away we go.
How James O’Keefe-ian. A Breitbart signature takedown with cooperation from the good Congressman himself.
I’m certain the Breitbots expected all left-wing outrage over the setup to evaporate when Rep. Weiner resigned. Remember Andrew Breitbart hijacking that press conference?
Yet. One person wouldn’t let it go, and that one person was Neal Rauhauser, who kept on with it and keeps on with it until this day.

Did you catch that? The article Karoli links as proving Neal was right? Rauhauser’s own Daily Kos diary from July 28, 2011, under his “Stranded Wind” alias, which begins this way:

I’ve been all over Patterico for the last several weeks, as he looks to be a pretty good candidate for the planner/operator behind Weinergate, but the other players have been getting attention, too.

Wow: Rauhauser’s own claim to have identified Patterico as orchestrating the (non-existent) right-wing conspiracy against Weiner is cited by Karoli as proof that Neal was right! So if Rauhauser were to assert that he once worked as a body double for Brad Pitt, Karoli would link that as “proof” of Neal’s muscular physique. This is an invalid circular argument which accepts mere assertion as “evidence.”

However, we can take Rauhauser at his word that he was “all over Patterico” in July 2011, as witness his Daily Kos diaries:

Seven posts in the span of 23 days — why? Weiner confessed and resigned in mid-June 2011 and, since then, Weiner himself has never claimed that he was the victim of anything except his own stupidity.

Why, more than two weeks after Weiner’s admission of the unfortunate truth, would Rauhauser still be pushing the conspiracy theory explanation of WeinerGate and implausibly pretending that Patterico was to blame for it? It’s hard to explain by any normal logic. And what was it that made Patterico so peculiarly a target of Rauhauser’s wrath? Remember that on June 4, 2011 — nine days into the WeinerGate scandal — Rauhuser published this absurd claim without offering any evidence:

Congressman Weiner was stalked and set up by a Christian Infowar Militia cell based largely in Oklahoma City.

So, on June 4, Neal stakes his reputation on the (non-existent) “Christian Infowar Militia cell.” A month later, however, Neal is offering a new villain: Patrick “Patterico” Frey. How and why did Rauhauser change his mind? If there was no evidence that any Oklahoma-based “cell” stalked and “set up” Weiner — and Neal never offered anything to support that wild-eyed nonsense — what credibility did Rauhauser bring to his subsequent theory that Patterico was the secret mastermind, a claim for which Neal similarly never produced a scintilla of evidence? What could possibly explain the sudden shift in Rauhauser’s interests? Why should anyone believe anything Rauhauser has to say about any of this?

None of these obvious questions seem to have crossed Karoli’s mind. She simply accepts Neal’s finger-pointing at Patterico, without ever wondering why Patterico was singled out this way. Could it have something to do with “Alicia Pain,” the mysterious character who began cyberstalking Patterico after Weiner resigned? Patterico, June 30, 2011:

The person claiming to be “Jennifer George” who called Lee was a hoaxer.
There really was a person who threatened the real Jennifer George, and that person pretended to be Lee Stranahan.
That person hates Lee, and Breitbart.
I have been very busy and probably don’t know all the reasons why this couldn’t possibly be the case. So tell me.
UPDATE: Point #1 could be wrong, and the theory still holds.
UPDATE x2: I’m feeling better about the theory with each passing second.
Hi, Neal!

“Alicia Pain” shows up in the comments, as do I: Someone linked my blog in the comments, sending traffic to my site that I noticed, so I showed up at Patterico’s to ask why Rauhauser was suspected of involvement in the whole “Jennifer George” incident — evidently an attempt to discredit Stranahan, who had been following up loose ends surrounding WeinerGate.

Three hours after Patterico brought up Rauhauser’s name in connection with “Jennifer George,” Patterico was SWATted.

Probably just a coincidence, I’m sure. Ask the Gaped Crusader.

UPDATE (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: John Hoge says, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn up in the comments section.” My apologies to anyone confused by what’s going on down below. I try to avoid the “amateur detective” motif in blogging; I’m a journalist, not a cop or a spy.

UPDATE III: Linked by Patterico — thanks! — and since someone in the comments asked for a brief summary of Who’s Who in this twisted saga, I’ll direct you to Patterico’s July 12 post, “The Kimberlin Story: The Short Version.”

Now a Memeorandum thread.

 

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Category: Conspiracy Theories, Patterico, The Kimberlin Files

Comments

35 Responses to “@Karoli: Weiner Truther? And Other Questions of Remaining Interest”

  1. Xerthus
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 2:15 am

    Yellow-teeth Karoli acts surprised that Breitbart asked a group for help on information leading to the criminal defamation of his name using hidden domains. You seem to stick up for Stranahan who was trying to hide that information too. Try to clean that bias up, eh? You politicos can’t see the forest for the trees. Slam the FBI with reports on her and be done with it. She deserves it and broke the law along with her cronies.

    ProTIp -Too much credit given to someone who looks like she hasn’t put down the bottle or 3 packs of cigs a day. http://radaris.com/ng/pb/Karoli/Hayes/social#info

    Most times, I think you’re all nuts with an agenda and the only sane ones are LE who are being childishly threatened by yellow-teeth Karoli and long-term alcoholic psychopath Rauhauser. Go look into their past activity. It reaches back as far as 2004.

    oh hai, Brooks (Haven)! Brooks Bayne. http://pastehtml.com/view/chal27sq3.txt Nice dox you got there! Embarrassed? You should be.

    oh hai, #TeamRauhauser shitheads. Wanna see yours?

    We can do pirate bay lunch together. Black Friday free download day.

    All said and done, no one can patch up Rauhauser’s criminal dossier. They have only attached themselves to it. Remember, it’s Rauhauser who is hiding from the law and when friends protect and aid fugitives, they become accomplices.

  2. Lee Stranahan
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 2:32 am

    Not only was I not trying to “hide” that info but I’m the first one who brought it up.

  3. Xerthus
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 5:20 am

    Nothing like admitting you’re a criminal, so thanks for that. I’ll screenshot this baby.

    You accepted hacked material which you can explain to Boston PD and their FBI Field Office how you came to acquire and then illegally disseminated it, obstructing justice of a federal investigation illegally with your buddies Karoli, Brooks Bayne and Neal Rauhauser.

    What else you got, tough guy? You tried to help stalk down a girl who abided by the law and you can’t even do that right. They confronted her about hacked databases. Your preciously loved boss called her to ask who was hacking and harassing him and wanted his name to report his end of what was going on. You’re no less a criminal than the rest of them. Your day is coming. Lots of people working on this evidence and it sure doesn’t look good for you. You’re right at the top of the list along with the rest of the criminal stalkers.

    We’ve got facts for evidence and we intend to pound it as hard and high as we have to. You’ve got a blog of nonsense that begs for money after you’re done beating up on victims of Neal Rauhauser, telling everyone to forget his name, remember?

    Enjoy your day in the sun on Rauhauser’s porn blog. I’m sure there’s a t-shirt sale in there for you somewhere and maybe a few invoices for you that haven’t been paid by deadbeat dad, Brooks Bayne.

  4. When the Going Gets Weird, … | hogewash
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:19 am

    […] a worked example, see the comments here. Share this:TwitterFacebookLinkedInEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry […]

  5. Xerthus
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:23 am

    Neal, are you still working at RCN.com? Has Cory called your boss to
    find out where to pick you up yet? Working the DC Area or still
    commuting within your Maryland border?

    How do you like it,
    asshole? Your full dox is coming soon or so I’ve heard. Anything to
    help them grace with you a new pair of shiny handcuffs. Does your boss
    know what you’ve been doing? I think Monday should be called, “Everyone
    call RCN.COM day”.

    Like everything else you get wrong, ZAPEM
    isn’t writing that stuff you quote on your blog. You know damn well it’s
    Emick. Not our group of haters. I’m sure there’s plenty to choose from
    after listening to Vince in the Bay the other night. I think Vince
    needs to hear what we’ve found too, but in the meantime –
    http://www.blogtalkradio.com/vinceinthebay/2012/11/20/disorderly-conduct–case-of-the-mondays

    Let’s
    clear something else up. Birthers? LOL! We’re not birthers and
    you’re a Constitutional ignor-amous if you want to push how little you
    know about that piece of paper. We countered birthers. You just can’t
    read. We’re also sure even birthers pale in comparison to your idea of
    population overshoots and how the world is coming to an end tomorrow if
    we don’t get climategate under control. With wind mills. (spoken like a
    true country dumbass) By golly, we may even have take you up on the idea
    of using human remains for fossil fuel when the “fuck-me blankets”
    don’t cut it.

    I agree with the guy who said your medicine
    cabinet lacked a cure for your mental condition. I don’t think suction
    cups are the treatment of choice either or standing on your head
    bare-assed naked.

    No need to delete the video of you physically
    stalking Patrick Read’s wife as soon as we linked to it for the FBI to
    watch. We took the liberty of showing them before we showed everyone
    else. We may even have extras to share for those who didn’t get the
    chance to see how creepy you really are.

    Finally, you should
    really keep that Christian religious hatred stuff in check too. Hate
    crimes and all. I’m sure Project Vigilant warned you about the pitfalls
    of doing that? Or was it Infragard?

  6. WJJ Hoge
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:26 am

    To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson–When the going gets weird, the weird turn up in the comments section.

  7. WJJ Hoge
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:26 am

    To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson–When the going gets weird, the weird turn up in the comments section.

  8. Xerthus
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:31 am

    And another thing while I’m here. If anyone can’t see that this whole Karl Rove rigged elections crap is just another way for Rauhauser to drag rubberneckers who believe he’ll come up with the evidence to his blog, they need to unplug the internet because they’re too stupid to be on it.

    Some people were deceptively duped into believing he had proof of something big, when the facts are, his blog has no facts whatsoever. It’s retribution for the truth which he can’t address because he knows he’s guilty.

  9. suzyrice
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:41 am

    Someone should design a schematic with the players’ names identified cross-referenced to their connections, alternative personalities, sites and the others. It’d help the rest of us understand the names involved.

  10. Stranahan
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:51 am

    Are you a tweeker?

  11. Mick Baker
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:57 am

    Do you reckon that I could be blamed as the mastermind if I worked hard enough? I’m looking for some notoriety. Or does my being Australian disqualify me?

  12. DOXUM
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 8:24 am

    You’re a little late to the game to be calling anyone from our court “weird”. You also have a “weird” bias for picking and choosing which victims of Rauhauser’s are worthy human beings. Don’t like the truth, don’t read it, Hoge.

  13. DOXUM
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 8:38 am

    All the stuff about Neal snitching on UGNazi and other evidence over at LA Weekly is true. You’d be surprised who nailed that one, Neal. Better work on your tags some more.

    Holding Beandogs and UGNazi dirt in his back pocket while using a hacked email to contact a Federal Official with false information.

    Inciting Barrett Brown as carlito2000 and another pseudonym that
    resulted in Brown, an admitted drug addict, to go after a Federal Agent.

    Call for Violence Manifesto was found right next to the Swatting Service.

    All 100% true.

  14. DOXUM
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 8:40 am

    No, but you’re a scammer who needs to get a life and a real job.

  15. richard mcenroe
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 8:51 am

    Stacy, she may or not be an intelligent progressive activist, but she is not an honest one. There are no such.

  16. DOXUM
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 8:56 am

    Watching Neal freak post every time you pull out another factoid makes me smile, X.

  17. DOXUM
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 9:52 am

    Neal lied, “Absolute garbage. I took videos of escalator rides at a red line D.C.
    Metro stop I use fairly often. I have a lot of transit related video,
    still photos, maps, and writing that stretch back over the last five
    years. I have pulled the video in question, so they can’t dramawhore
    with it.”

    Uhhh, Neal. You uh, lived in Illinois in 2010, 2 years ago. So give it up on the BS that you’ve been traveling it over the “last 5 years”. It’s absolute garbage. That route isn’t on your way to work. We know where you work. You also sent emails threatening Read’s wife so we know exactly why you took the video. You called her work. And you’re stalking a retired cop because Breitbart asked for a bodyguard from his office. You called their work and the cops know all about it.

    If you’re going to get someone committed (LOL), first make sure you didn’t initiate YOUR confirmed, diagnosed, mental illness on them and then make sure you’ve got the right person, not the tons of guesses you make and then write letters trying to explain your obsessive behavior. You’re not gonna get ANYONE committed because you have to come out from hiding and you’re afraid because you know you’ll be charged and arrested at the federal and state levels.

    Oh and no one has been stalking you. YOU are the stalker. You have no proof. You just turn all accusation on end. You know you’re guilty and we have the proof. First you picked on that Howard dude. Then you blamed Pat Read. Then you moved on to ZAPEM. Can’t get enough of hunting down lives, can ya? Or kids. Where is ZAPEM anyway? Can’t find her, can ya? But she’s STALKING YOU? No Facebook, no Twitter (that you hacked), no email to find. No nothing. But you’re still hunting with maps and barking dogs hot on the trail, aren’t ya? Prove to us some more why you don’t deserve the padded cell you’re gonna get.

    How would you know whose door that is? Did you go to that address? Just how many houses have you checked you sick turd? You certainly put out enough business associates and their families and there’s going to be problems with that. The FBI seems to have already spoken to you about that little problem right on LA Weekly. We’re just here to help them so they have no problem finding your weasly ass.

    I’m sick of hearing your name on the internet as a whole. You’re a blemish on the cyber world. Like a zit someone needs to pop.

  18. Rob Crawford
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 10:00 am

    “This is important: Karoli is an intelligent progressive activist, a fluent writer viewed as a serious person, a valued member of the online Left. She is not a clown or a troll.”

    Not following the logic here. Almost by definition a “value member of the online Left” is a clown, and most of them behave like trolls.

  19. Rob Crawford
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 10:05 am

    And then, reading the rest, I see she buys into the “Weiner wuz framed” BS. By referring to someone Rauhauser wrote.

    You really should reassess your judgement of her intelligence.

  20. Lee Stranahan
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 10:34 am

    Thanks for the advice, anonymous stranger who hates things.

  21. Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE WEINER SCANDAL AND Patterico’s SWATting….
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 10:46 am

    […] THE WEINER SCANDAL AND Patterico’s SWATting. […]

  22. Mike Stack
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 11:02 am

    I love when a tweeter asks this question

  23. Mike Stack
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 11:14 am

    Tweeker, that is.

  24. Monitor2112
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 11:37 am

    Interesting comments section today. Not sure who is who in there, but what they espouse is interesting at least. In a scary sort of way.

  25. Carl E Olson Jr
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 12:03 pm

    Who gives a crap?

  26. Rob Crawford
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 12:55 pm

    Clearly you do.

  27. Deathtotheswiss
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 1:03 pm

    So many lunatics involved with Daily Kos. Sooo many…

  28. Stogie Chomper
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

    Rauhauser’s suspicion that Wiener was baited by rightwingers posing as young women on Twitter is a study in projection and paranoia. This tactic is one the cyber-twirps on 4-Chan /b/ would often use — gaining control of someone’s Facebook or other account, then using that info to social-engineer access to other accounts for the purpose of posting fake, damaging and embarrassing messages under the target’s ID. See “William” in Parmy Olson’s book. Since Rauhauser often uses fake IDs himself, he assumes that others do the same.

  29. Bob Belvedere
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 5:59 pm

    THIS.

  30. Dianna Deeley
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

    Good lord, folks! I think, having read all this, that I shall just go watch the kitten cam. It’s just as frenetic, but less dreadfully confusing.

  31. Quartermaster
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 9:44 pm

    Not sure. I’m sure there are a lot of Libtard idiots in Oz, I just don’t know the proportion. Maybe enough given the PM down there.

    I’d say being from Oz does not disqualify you. OTOH, if you some intelligence, you would not want to be qualified.

  32. Quartermaster
    November 23rd, 2012 @ 9:46 pm

    Just watch yourself there. The cuteness can be terminal.

  33. Dianna Deeley
    November 24th, 2012 @ 1:32 am

    I was thinking about that most of this evening, and realized that I want a simple five sentences, with a startling lack of subordinate clauses, to give the rest of us some context.

  34. Rebecca Diserio
    November 24th, 2012 @ 2:25 pm

    @Karoli a serious blogger? ARE you kidding me? She is a part of a Radio Show called “the Momocrats” (I can’t make this sh** up) anyway, we do a Radio Show which exposes all their crazy “theories” I think you’ll see Karoli in a whole new light
    http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rebecca-diserio/2012/10/27/friday-night-live-with-steve-rebecca
    & here
    http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rebecca-diserio/2012/10/20/friday-night-live-with-steve-rebecca

  35. Zapem ?
    November 27th, 2012 @ 2:19 am

    Karoli is completely clueless. When i pointed out it is not a ‘smear’ to refer to Kimberlin as a convict, she went on and on about me being involved in some right-wing plot to ‘demonize’ him and Rauhauser.

    Never mind that i never even *heard* of either of them until creepy Neal started threatening me in the middle of the night..