Patterico's Pontifications

6/15/2012

True Story

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:36 pm



I own the audio version of Martin Luther King, Jr’s autobiography. It’s a stirring tale of how a man used civil disobedience to fight injustice.

You know who sent that to me, as a present? Months ago?

Aaron Walker.

I am not making that up.

Mitch McConnell: “There’s somebody I’ve heard about named Brett Kimberlin”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:33 pm



The link goes to an interview with Senator McConnell in advance of a speech he planned to make that would mention Brett Kimberlin. The second you see video of his speech, I want to know about it:

Sen. McConnell drew special attention to allegations that certain left-wing activists have been SWATting their political enemies. “I know you’ve been right on top of that story,” he said of Breitbart News. “I think those reports are incredibly disturbing and need to be fully investigated, and I hope we can get somebody in the majority position of the House to take a look at it. There’s somebody I’ve heard about named Brett Kimberlin, who is a left-wing terrorist that I know many people feel may be behind the SWATting. That’s strictly illegal, and should be investigated.”

“They are trying to shut up their critics,” McConnell said. “I want to stiffen the spines of those who are out there. Do not be afraid of this crowd. Don’t let them scare you. Every American has a right to organize, to speak, to contribute to causes they believe in. The best way to stop them would be to defeat them in the election this November.”

Wrong.

The best way to stop people who try to stamp out free speech with illegal tactics is to send them to prison. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s a free speech issue — and as to the SWATting, it’s a crime issue.

Still, while I disapprove of any attempt to turn this into a partisan issue, I guess I recognize that this is what politicians do. And, in any event, I am very pleased to feel that Senator McConnell at least understands the threat to free speech, and has my back.

I wish the Democrats felt the same way. I really do. There is no reason that the letter signed by 85 House Republicans had to be signed only by House Republicans. There have to be House and Senate Democrats who oppose the Brett Kimberlin brand of thuggery.

P.S. I don’t think Brett Kimberlin’s funders have been adequately questioned. The obvious Big Media angle to this story — one that does not involve convolution or getting in the weeds — is simple: why is a convicted bomber and perjurer getting money from the Tides Foundation, Barbra Streisand, etc.?

Will they commit never to fund this man’s organizations again? If not, why not?

We need a Much Bigger Spotlight on this issue.

Charges Against Aaron Walker Dismissed

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:31 pm



You mean they’re not going to prosecute him for blogging?

Capital Hill can confirm that the criminal case against Aaron Walker has been dismissed by the Maryland State Attorney.

Walker, you will recall, was led away in handcuffs after a June 4 peace order hearing. The charge, filed by Brett Kimberlin, was that Walker has violated a temporary peace order.

Of course, Kimberlin can still walk into a Maryland commissioner’s office any old time he likes and perjure himself to swear out a warrant against anyone. Also, there is still a blatantly unconstitutional order in place telling Aaron he can’t blog about Kimberlin.

So the notion that they’re not going to try to throw him in jail again for blogging is sort of cold comfort. I’ll save the celebrations. But I figured it was worth passing along.

Jaime Zapata Intercepted Fast and Furious Guns

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:19 pm



I’ve said this first bit before — but anything worth saying once is worth saying twice, don’t you think?

OK, that may not be true of everything, but this is worth repetition.

On March 4, 2011, I asked of the murder of Jaime Zapata:

Was this murder also the result of guns that the Obama administration deliberately allowed into Mexico?

It was known at the time that a Project Gunrunner gun had been found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. My question was: did the DoJ and/or ATF also “walk” the gun that had been used to kill ICE agent Jaime Zapata? This was a question I had not heard asked publicly before it was asked on this blog. (As I explained at the time, I cannot take credit for asking this question: as often happens, it was a perceptive reader who tipped me to the possibility.)

I elaborated on the thesis on March 29, 2011, asking: Should the ATF Have Prevented the Sale of the Gun that Killed ICE Agent Jaime Zapata?. I followed it up with a post the next day in which I said:

I think the feds had Zapata’s murder weapon in their hands, and let it go. I think that, in February 2011, Zapata was murdered with a gun that literally slipped through the fingers of ATF agents.

Today we get a rather interesting revelation: Jaime Zapata was actually intercepting firearms that originated from the Fast and Furious program:

Congressional investigators permitted to view Department of Homeland Security documents related to the Fast and Furious operation have located and seen an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Report of Investigation (ROI) from August 2010 describing 80 weapons seized in an arms smuggling interdiction between Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas. Of these weapons, the majority (approximately 50) were noted to have come from Operation Fast & Furious in Arizona, purchased by Uriel Patino and Jacob Chambers. The ROI was written and signed by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot dead in an ambush at a fake roadblock in San Luis Potosí, Mexico on 15 February 2011. At the time of the report, Agent Zapata was assigned to the Laredo office.

Laredo, eh?

Didn’t I write on September 30, 2011: “Has anyone fully looked into the Laredo office? Just curious . . .”?

Why, yes. I did.

I also asked a number of questions about Laredo on March 29, 2011 — a post with a detailed timeline of the surveillance of the Osorio crew that purchased weaponry found at the Zapata crime scene:

What caused Laredo ATF to be interested in investigating the Osorios and Morrison in early November 2010? How long had Laredo ATF been investigating the Osorios and Morrison and why? Why was the Dallas operation initiated by Laredo, and does that investigation relate to the earlier observations, surveillance, and seizure(s) near the border?

I will once again ask whether Laredo is central to the story.

Just sayin’.

Is the New Hampshire A.G. Investigating James O’Keefe Working with Brett Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser?

Filed under: General,Nadia Naffe — Patterico @ 7:38 am



If these emails are genuine, it seems that way:

You list Patterico on your blog roll. He has been investigated twice for harassment, but slipped both times. He did NOT slip a civil suit from Nadia Naffe, a former employee of James O’Keefe. I set up the lawyer for her after Pat Frey posted her medical records and social security number online. No question it was him – he used his wife’s account and did it during work hours from the offices of the Los Angeles County District Attorney. See the attached documents about Frey & Naffe for proof such things are happening. [Like much of what Neal writes, this paragraph is packed with falsehoods. — Ed.]

Frey did that because James O’Keefe is facing a state grand jury in New Hampshire. I know this because I talked to the Associate AG in charge of it, and then I hand carried a letter from him into an injunction hearing in New Jersey. Nadia wouldn’t release what she has on O’Keefe without paperwork, the AG was in trial and only had 48 hours to respond, while an out of state subpoena takes a week, so I carried the water for them. I’ve attached a copy of that letter for your reading enjoyment.

If the emails are genuine — and they read very much like Neal Rauhauser’s unique writing style — then they appear to reveal a close working relationship between Brett Kimberlin associate Neal Rauhauser and the New Hampshire Attorney General investigating James O’Keefe.

Someone should call the New Hampshire Attorney General and ask the Assistant Attorney General who wrote the letter, Richard Head (actual name), if Rauhauser’s claims are true.

By the way, a screenshot of part of that letter from Richard Head appeared on the web site of close Kimberlin associate Breitbart Unmasked, on the morning of the hearing.

The emails also reveal that Kimberlin associate Rauhauser put Nadia Naffe up to filing a civil claim against me and my boss, by arranging for her to be represented by Jay Leiderman, a lawyer who has represented at least one figure allegedly from the hacking group Anonymous.

Does any of this seem like news to anybody?

Stacy McCain Continues to Investigate Neal Rauhauser

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:20 am



In a pair of posts that are well worth reading.

Neal Rauhauser’s Online Slander Factory discusses some emails by Rauhauser currently being published at Lee Stranahan’s site. There is a blockbuster email that has yet to be published, but the ones published so far show Rauhauser’s penchant for fabricating claims about others (me in particular) and sending those fabricated claims around in email:

Lee Stranahan has obtained e-mails sent privately by Brett Kimberlin’s demented associate Neal Rauhauser in which Rauhauser makes what would appear to be false and defamatory statements about a number of individuals, including Patrick “Patterico” Frey . . . .

By July 27, 2011, Rauhauser declared that Patterico “looks to be a pretty good candidate for the planner/operator behind Weinergate.” Rauhauser’s ideé fixe — his bizarre delusion that Anthony Weiner was the victim of a conspiracy coordinated by Patterico — is a figment of his febrile imagination.

Yet when Rauhauser transmits these deranged and baseless claims via e-mail (and, as we have seen, he seems to do this routinely) he crosses a line between being a mere kook and being a slanderer. And when, as in his May 24 e-mail to Mike Stack and Jay Leiderman, Rauhauser attempts to orchestrate an unfounded nuisance suit against Patterico, he crosses another line into what would seem to be an interstate conspiracy to corrupt the justice system.

The e-mail published by Lee Stranahan shows Rauhauser not only falsely asserting that Patterico was “funding” Seth Allen and “used to work together” with O’Keefe, but furthermore saying that Allen, Walker, Ron Brynaert, Mike Stack and Michelle Lessick all have “psych[iatric] disabilities” or “mental difficulties.” Rauhauser says Stack “was steered to attack me – he’s another person on psych disability that Frey picked out and victimized” — an absolutely ludicrous smear.

Then we have Neal Rauhauser’s Game Plan Involving Velvet Revolution and Anonymous. It’s a post that documents an important comment by Rauhauser in which he claims he and a major player in the online hacking group Anonymous teamed up to back Velvet Revolution. (This is all stuff I have known about for months, but I appreciate Stacy’s energy in putting the story together at a time when I am too busy to do so.)

From the Rauhauser comment:

A few hours pass and then a very big dog from the Anonymous pen comes knocking, puzzled over why one crazy person with a Twitter account is so important.

People have a view that Anonymous is all crime, all the time, but that’s more properly the mysterious transnational behavior problem that is LulzSec. Most of the Anonymi are more interested in free speech and technology — “We don’t break into things, we break out of them”.

We start talking, comparing war stories clear back to the 1990s, and it turns out big dog and I didn’t know each other, but our circles did cross. Pretty soon an obscure IRC channel on an obscure network is full of people that went quiet ten years ago, all making popcorn and getting ready to watch the fun.

Fun? Absolutely — because now Anonymous understands that Velvet Revolution is the only victim of HBGary that has both standing and the will to pursue them. They understand that Velvet Revolution has faced an organized smear that is pretty transparently attributable to Breitbart associates. And now there may well be a connection between the two.

McCain’s post, along with the Rauhauser comment it documents, explain much about how Rauhauser first came to contact Velvet Revolution. Also, you’ll be interested to see that Rauhauser claims to have written a report that was seen by members of Congress.

Which leads me back to that yet-unpublished email. You’ll be especially interested to see who Rauhauser claims to be working closely with now. Hint: it’s not Obama or anyone in Congress — but it is someone who is conducting an official criminal investigation of James O’Keefe.

Developing, as they say.

UPDATE: No sooner do I hit publish than I learn that the “yet unpublished email” has been published. This may be worth a separate post.

http://anexconsview.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/the-email-exchange-with-neal-rauhauser-in-context/


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