The Other McCain

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

The Crazy Is Always There

Posted on | April 16, 2015 | 35 Comments

Bill Schmalfeldt ranting, 2011. (Image via Thomas Anderson at Vimeo)

Deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt was in court today in Carroll County, Maryland, facing charges of violating the peace order that prohibited him from contacting John Hoge. Reports that Bill would be representing himself in this case inspired much mirth online. It’s strange how, from a perspective of sanity — you know, among people who have an actual life — these weirdos seem to come and go. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when Schmalfeldt’s bizarre antics were a subject of regular updates here, but once he stopped harassing me, I stopped paying attention to the Neckless Wonder. Yet his insanity persisted to the point where now Schmalfeldt went to trial — and got off with a stern warning from the judge. Meanwhile, in Alabama . . .

Remember Roger Shuler? Sure you do.

He’s the Democrat lunatic who became Shelby County Jail inmate No. 288928 because of his bizarre vendetta against Alabama Republicans. Shuler came to my attention because, in 2012, he was promoting various lurid smears against me and others who had been targeted as enemies of Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser. Just another crazy weirdo on the Internet who had to push it to the limit:

A Shelby County blogger, who spent five months in jail before agreeing to remove stories from his website about the son of a former governor, has now been ordered to pay $3.5 million in a defamation lawsuit filed by a former campaign manager for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange.
The blogger had written about an alleged affair between Strange and the campaign manager.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Donald Blankenship on Monday entered a default judgment against Roger Shuler and his website Legal Schnauzer for $1.5 million in compensatory and $2 million in punitive damages. The judge wrote that all the elements for the judgment were present, including that a false and defamatory statement was made.
Jessica Medeiros Garrison, a Birmingham lawyer, filed the defamation lawsuit in 2013 against Shuler. She had managed Strange’s 2010 campaign for Alabama Attorney General and served as Chief Counsel and Deputy Attorney General in 2011.
“The facts are clear and the judgment speaks for itself,” Garrison stated in an email Tuesday to AL.com. “The absolute and blatant disregard for the truth has to come with consequences. I am very happy to finally be in a position to set the record straight,” she wrote.
Bill Baxley, one of Garrison’s attorneys, also said the ruling “speaks for itself.” He said he doubts his client will be able to collect any money from Shuler, who had his house foreclosed upon a year or so ago.

In 2013, I wrote an American Spectator column about Shuler, “Crazy in Alabama.” I also wrote a column about another Internet weirdo, Barrett Brown, “The Kook Who Knew Too Much.” In case you missed the news, Barrett Brown got sentenced to five years in federal prison.

Bill Schmalfeldt, Roger Shuler, Barrett Brown — some of my friends wonder how it is I manage to attract the attention of so many lunatic trolls. It’s as if I exude a magnetic force field of craziness, but the mystery is actually not so mysterious. About a dozen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled me a “neo-Confederate,” and this was amplified by leftists (including gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile) who claimed I was a “white supremacist.” At the time, I was working as an assistant national editor at the Washington Times and my bosses advised me (“advised” in this context being a near-synonym for “ordered”) not to respond to these accusations. This enforced silence was unpleasant, as I was of course eager to refute these smears, but my bosses were probably correct: If your enemy is lying about you, why publicize their lies by commenting about them? The SPLC is a reprehensible organization that has subsequently been implicated in inciting violent maniac to attack the Family Research Council. To be smeared by the SPLC is a badge of honor and yet, because I did not immediately respond to the accusations against me when they first targeted me, this gave rise to the Internet Legend of Robert Stacy McCain, White Supremacist — with consequences that have been at times comic and at other times tragic.

In September 2009, while I was covering the Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (whose blog had once been fairly important among conservatives) decided to unload the SPLC/Signorile “white supremacist” on me, and I fought a two-week blog war to prove my point: Charles Johnson is a worthless damned fool. Everybody at that time recognized that CJ had gone of the deep end. He had started losing his grip in October 2007, when he began smearing Pamela Geller as a “neofascist,” and his slow descent into madness (ranting against “creationists” and “climate denialists”) had been watched with quiet chagrin by Charles’s former allies. Once he attacked me, however, Johnson’s defection to the Left suddenly became a matter of public knowledge, and actually got noticed by the New York Times.

The Little Green Meltdown was big news back in 2009. It had the incidental effect of creating a sort of residual echo for the Internet Legend of Robert Stacy McCain, White Supremacist. Because there are many friends who can vouch for my bona fides, this doesn’t really bother me — “Don’t Give a Damn About My Bad Reputation,” as Joan Jett said — and my indifference to this really seems to make some people crazy.

Every once in a while, usually after I’ve had some notable success, my Twitter timeline will suddenly get a burst of craziness from trolls who think they have discovered the Hidden Secret of Right-Wing Racism. What has actually happened, however, is one of two things:

  1. Some idiot did a Google search and came up with the same stuff that I already dealt with back in 2009. “Asked and answered,” but the troll doesn’t know this.
  2. One of the Usual Suspects (perhaps one of Neal Rauhauser’s sockpuppet accounts) has decided to replay the same tactic that has failed so often before.

Now, I’ve got better things to do with my time than constantly reply to the same nonsense, so I usually ignore this stuff. “Oh, look, another idiot with 72 Twitter followers calling me a racist.” The problem is that some of these trolls become obsessed with me. Barrett Brown once wrote an entire book chapter about me, which his publisher rejected because who the hell cares about Stacy McCain, right? I’m just a guy with a blog. I’m not a politician or a TV star. Furthermore, there is the evidence that Sherlock Holmes would call The Dog That Did Not Bark: If I am really such an odious hatemonger, wouldn’t I occasionally, y’know, monger some hate?

That is to say, wouldn’t a white supremacist be blogging about white supremacy? Obviously, this isn’t who I am, because this is not what I do. Yet there is a certain type of person who thinks, “A-ha! I’m an expert at this Internet Detective stuff, so I will prove what an awful racist this guy is! I will expose him for the Evil Right Wing Hater that we all know he must be! And then I will become the Most Famous of All Internet Detectives! People will love me!”

So they run off chasing that phantom and, when they fail, they become convinced that I’ve played some kind of dirty trick on them by evading their Internet Detective skills and they go nuts. This explains my tendency to attract crazy trolls and, speaking of which, Charles Johnson has created a Secret Blog Commenting System that will allow him and his dwindling mob of kooks to discuss their weird obsessions without fear that someone will screen-cap their insanity.

Here, I’ve got $20 that says this latest Wile E. Coyote Acme Rocket Skates™ genius plan will fail. What will happen, I predict, is that someone inside the Secret Blog Commenting System will say something that pisses off Charles Johnson, resulting in one of his periodic spasms of ban-the-dissenters fury. Screen-caps of the Secret Blog Commenting System discussion will then be published, with embarrassing consequences for Charles & Friends. Of course, this will be of interest only to those of us who remember who Charles Johnson was, back when he really mattered, which was many, many years ago.





 

Category: Barrett Brown, Bill Schmalfeldt, Charles Johnson, Roger Shuler

Comments

35 Responses to “The Crazy Is Always There”

  1. Quartermaster
    April 16th, 2015 @ 12:30 pm

    Ye god and little fishes! Not that pic again!

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 16th, 2015 @ 12:36 pm

    A head that is like a demented angry nipple…

    Who could it be?

  3. Mm
    April 16th, 2015 @ 12:39 pm

    Schmalfeldt has been harassing Hoge for over two years, weekly, if not daily. The courts do nothing, as n this case, where Schmalfeldt confessed to knowingly violating the peace order.

  4. librarygryffon
    April 16th, 2015 @ 12:43 pm

    Prediction: the courts will do nothing unless/until, like Deb Frisch, he harasses someone “important”, like a member of LE or a politician.

    I’m sure BS is reading this as open season on John Hoge and all the other targets of his harassment and hate.

  5. robertstacymccain
    April 16th, 2015 @ 12:56 pm

    If Schmalfeldt was capable of restraining his obsessive behavior, it would never have gotten to the point where he was charged with violating a court order. Ergo, it stands to reason that he will continue until he is finally incarcerated, or until his slow-motion mental breakdown becomes such a problem that he is hospitalized.

  6. librarygryffon
    April 16th, 2015 @ 1:26 pm

    True, but now I don’t think he’ll feel any need to moderate at all, since I’m sure he’s viewing today as the courts telling him that nothing bad will ever happen to him, no matter what he does.

  7. K-Bob
    April 16th, 2015 @ 1:41 pm

    Stacy may be a lightning rod for this stuff. But when you’re properly anchored, the charges and the field effects dissipate harmlessly into the good earth as if it never happened.

  8. CarolinaGirl3
    April 16th, 2015 @ 1:42 pm

    I swear – the dude not only IS a dick, he actually LOOKS like one!

  9. Dianna Deeley
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:10 pm

    Huh – do you know, I think this article has made me think about Charles and LGF for the first time in almost a year.

    Really disappointed that the judge decided that Bill Schmalfeldt was not guilty. That’s going to enable him, and no one is going to have any peace.

  10. Dianna Deeley
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:11 pm

    He does! It’s as if nature decided to make his appearance a warning to an unsuspecting world.

  11. RS
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:22 pm

    Over the years, I’ve run into a lot of these types, like B.S. My reactions are always the same. At first, I cannot imagine that someone is so socially maladroit as to behave as they do, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. As time passes, and their behavior continues, I wind up acknowledging that they are deliberately being dicks. Then I get angry. Yet ultimately, my Christian side gets the best of me and my anger disappears and morphs into pity. I think of my own life and blessings and compare it to those whose lives are so bereft that bad behavior is hobby and thank God, He brought me to where I am.

    These people are sad human beings. They are lost. And I pray for them.

  12. AMartel
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:43 pm

    Photo reminiscent of “The Hill That Ate People.” (Scary story on a record narrated by Vincent Price.)
    And, to clarify, I refer to the mountain of lard with teeth pictured above, not the current Democratic presidential candidate.

  13. Jeanette Victoria
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:54 pm

    I still have twitter and internet barncles. Same shit differnt day. The loons keep insisting I’m a felon and yet they have failed to produce said conviction. Why aren’t I surprised? Someone from my past hates me enough to save a forged email (he copied the headers from a yahoogroup post I made which remain to this day) by the military imposter, con-artists fraud and professional internet smear-monger the “rev”Jim Sutter wrote while pretending to be me. Which he was arrested for. The email has long since been removed from the web and can NOT be found by Google. And yet someone sends copys of it to various folks who have a public disagreement with me. That is some serious obsessiveness isn’t it?

    You know that anon creep @Nicolebonnet1 has me blocked and yet she still rubbernecks here and my timeline. But I’m the obeessed person because I notice their creepiness.

  14. Jeanette Victoria
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:55 pm

    Law enforcement and the courts are pretty much a joke today

  15. joethefatman
    April 16th, 2015 @ 2:59 pm

    I was late to the game. I got here after chuckles implosion. I can definitely say it’s been interesting. And if’n ya don’ mind, I’ll be stickin ‘roun.

  16. texlovera
    April 16th, 2015 @ 4:13 pm

    Mentally damaged troll is mentally damaged.

  17. Squid Hunt
    April 16th, 2015 @ 5:10 pm

    And that’s the problem with these crazies. If you laugh in their face and refuse to fear them, it just makes them crazier.

  18. Matthew W
    April 16th, 2015 @ 6:06 pm

    Do you think Bill Schmalfeldt and Chuckie have a tandem bike they ride together?

  19. Matthew W
    April 16th, 2015 @ 6:30 pm

    Good luck going to court and explaining blogs an twitter to Luddite judges and DAs

  20. Quartermaster
    April 16th, 2015 @ 8:01 pm

    Engineers may have invented OCD, but the left came down with it hard and for no good reason. At least Engineers are trying to solve problems. All too often it is a problem created by some loony leftist.

  21. Quartermaster
    April 16th, 2015 @ 8:02 pm

    RSM knows he’s crazy and that means he’s not insane. It counts for a lot.

  22. Were Hillary Clinton’s Lesbian Lovers Named In Deleted Emails? | Batshit Crazy News
    April 16th, 2015 @ 8:03 pm

    […] TOM: Then again, maybe lesbians have good reason to exclude some males… and I would exclude Schmalfeldt too […]

  23. K-Bob
    April 16th, 2015 @ 8:13 pm

    Crazy like a fighter pilot.

  24. Robert What?
    April 17th, 2015 @ 8:36 am

    Some people have way too much free time on their hands for their own good.

  25. Toastrider
    April 17th, 2015 @ 9:36 am

    Yeah, that was my reaction. I didn’t expect the judge to toss Cabin Boy in the clink — probation, maybe an apology and fine. And weirdly enough, I approve of the concept of mens rea (criminal intent) being a factor again.

    But honestly, I think the judge fouled up on this one. It should’ve taken fifteen minutes. ‘Were you served with a peace order? Do you know what one is? Did you contact him anyways? Guilty, you’re done. NEXT!’

  26. Jeanette Victoria
    April 17th, 2015 @ 10:01 am

    But I’m the one with obsession

    goo.gl/KqI4lN

  27. Britt McHenry Career Meltdown Rule 5 | Batshit Crazy News
    April 17th, 2015 @ 12:00 pm

    […] TOM: When you are a “special snowflake” sunlight is not your friend  Instapundit: Tow companies are notoriously bad But you need to be smart in dealing with asshats and you don’t do it by being an asshat yourself (and especially not on camera) EBL: Gary Trudeau is a Celebrity Asshat too, You can tell someone’s real character by how they treat waitstaff, and Hillary Clinton thinks she is above the Law  She could probably have a new career as a van parker for her majesty Hillary Clinton… Hillary would probably like her on her staff…  TOM: Feminism is inherently crazy. and Special snowflakes are not limited to the female gender […]

  28. Stacy McCain Corroborates Andrew Breitbart: “All Roads Lead To Jazzy” | The Diary of Daedalus
    April 18th, 2015 @ 12:01 pm

    […] an addendum to our previous thread, with impeccable timing and acerbic wit Robert Stacy McCain took his current events report about professional internet litigation troll Bill Schmalfeldt, wound […]

  29. bill0
    April 18th, 2015 @ 12:51 pm

    https://youtu.be/huC9J_IBtCA

  30. Stogie Chomper
    April 18th, 2015 @ 1:22 pm

    The Southern Poverty Law Center decided R.S. McCain was a “white supremacist” for once being a member of the League of the South. I was an early member of the League as well as Stacy, when it was still in formation. There was a faction who wanted the League to officially adopt a racial animus against non-whites, and there was another faction that opposed racial animus and wanted League membership open to everyone regardless of race. Stacy was a leading member of the anti-racist faction, considered racism to be unChristian, and argued strenuously against it. I know, I was there, I saw it first-hand. The SPLC got it exactly backwards; McCain was outspoken AGAINST white supremacy in the League of the South. For his efforts, he is now a slander target for this evil, far-left organization (the Southern Poverty Law Center).

  31. Daniel Freeman
    April 18th, 2015 @ 1:27 pm

    Nice non sequitur, @bill0:disqus . You might want to make your profile private, since your comment history mostly consists of content-free name-calling, gun-grabbing/Christian-bashing two-fers, fantasizing about sodomizing another commenter’s wife or daughter, and watching General Hospital.

    Also, yawning. A lot. You should go to a sleep clinic and get that checked out.

  32. Daniel Freeman
    April 18th, 2015 @ 2:34 pm

    Some of @bill0:disqus ‘s greatest hits, in chronological order, in case he tries to delete them.

    “I’ve been rejected by this kind of woman many times over.”
    “That comment was profoundly stupid.”
    “Posting while drunk is never a good idea.”
    “Trolls are worse.”
    “Um…you should keep your fantasies to yourself.”
    “Now that was monumentally stupid.”
    “Christian Conservatives and their followers should not be allowed to marry, nor should they be allowed to own firearms. They are the pre-eminent threat for violence in America today.”
    “And you “whinge” quite a bit yourself, dittohead. Methinks it’s not best to post when you’ve been drinking.”
    “Dittohead.”
    “idiot.”
    “You are an idiot.”
    “You should have heard what your daughter was crying out while I was drilling her in the ass.”
    “Dittohead.”
    “The only Death Valley in this conversation is your wife’s vag.”
    “You’ve been reported, dittohead.”
    “*Yawn* Try again, dittohead. Hannity’s on for another 40 minutes, so you can easily crib some more of his talking points.”
    “You can leave anytime, dittohead.”
    “Words cannot describe what an idiot you are.”
    “You are a joke, though.”
    “There is no “liberal media.””
    “Silly dittohead. That’s what you get for getting all your news from Rush.”
    “How’s your wife doing? She walking any easier these days?”
    “I’ll click your link when you post nakie pics.”
    “You are an idiot.”
    “Christian conservatives – especially creationists – must be relieved of their firearms immediately.”
    “Somebody’s been listening to Hannity…”
    “By virtue of that comment, you are a clueless ditto head who gets all of his or her news from talk radio.”
    “You’ve been reading your Hannity handbook, I see.”
    “*Yawn* More Hannity talking points.”
    “*yawn*”
    “This is a truly stupid and irrelevant column. If dittoheads didn’t have anything to be outraged about, they’d have nothing at all.”
    “*yawn* Shutup Jeanine, and try to come up with a better idea.”
    “*Yawn*”
    “That is just stupid.”
    “Idiot.”
    “You take dictation well, dittohead.”
    “Christian conservatives should not be able to own firearms.”
    “And your wife abandoned you for a real man.”
    “The problem with this theory is that Julian has revealed that he met Fluke in the witness protection program long before any of this
    happened, and was struck by how he looked exactly like Luke. That couldn’t have been the real Luke.”
    “I don’t get what the skeleton in the basement actually reveals – it’s Fluke, who is really Luke, merely talking to himself all those times andthere is no imposter? Well, aside from the major hole to fill where Julian told Alexis, and then Ava earlier about a Luke lookalike he met in Witness Protection, what about Tony Geary’s return to GH in early December when he first tries to break out of Miscavige only to be accosted by Fluke?”
    “I’m amazed at how many people hate the Fluke storyline. I enjoyed it in spite of all the flaws with the story mainly because TG is amazing.”
    “Hey how’s your wife doing? She walking any better?”
    “Well you dittoheads always have to have someone to blame. It’s always someone’s fault – never you’re own.”
    “The confederate flag is the battle flag of a rogue nation formed for the specific purpose of preserving slavery. It later became the primary
    symbol of the Klan, and later segregation. So it is a racist flag.”
    “That’s a good idea, but if you think about it, EVERY day should be Burn the Confederate Flag Day.”
    “The above is tired revisionist history.”

  33. Daniel Freeman
    April 19th, 2015 @ 2:23 am

    Their “hate map” is produced by their fundraising arm. They’ve been downgraded by the FBI from an ally to a source. They have a sweet quarter-bil in endowment and nothing to spend it on but permanent income — livin’ the dream! — and everyone knows it. They’re walking jokes.

  34. FMJRA 2.0: Come On Back Now, Do It Again : The Other McCain
    April 19th, 2015 @ 1:18 pm

    […] The Crazy Is Always There Regular Right Guy Batshit Crazy News Diary of Daedalus […]

  35. bill0
    April 22nd, 2015 @ 7:40 pm

    I am doing the Lord’s work.

    He appeared to me in a vision while I was banging your wife, and He told me that my mission was to torment his so called “followers,” whom he considers (correctly) to be completely out of their minds, and a threat to the work his real followers are doing. That work consists of demeaning and insulting them until they froth with rage. And also to urge legislatures across the country to forbid them from owning firearms, out of fear they’ll team up with Cliven Bundy types and launch some stupid insurrection.

    He’s also a big GH fan – particularly Luke. Like me, he considers Tony Geary a great actor, and he’s charged me with keeping up with the goings on in Port Charles.

    So I hope that clears it up for you, and I hope your wife is able to walk upright again. 🙂