How Was the Nadia Naffe Case Frivolous and Abusive? Let Me Count (Just a Few of) the Ways
As I indicated on Friday evening, the frivolous and abusive lawsuit by Nadia Naffe against me has been dismissed. Ken from Popehat has the rundown on what happened procedurally, and has posted a collection of excellent legal documents that provide all the information necessary for anyone with an abiding interest in the case.
I thought I would highlight a few quotations from the publicly available filings in this matter that show how my lawyers demonstrated that her lawsuit lacked merit.
First, a brief recap: Naffe initially sued, not only me, but also Los Angeles County, my former boss Steve Cooley, and (incredibly) my wife. My lawyers filed a set of motions showing how utterly meritless Naffe’s claims were. In particular, they blasted Naffe for her irresponsible decision to name my wife as a defendant. In response, Naffe made no attempt whatsoever to justify having sued my wife. She simply dismissed my wife from the suit. There was never any basis whatsoever for naming my wife in this lawsuit, and I believe that Naffe’s decision to do so was simply a tactic designed to terrorize my family.
Bolstering my conclusion that this was a politically motivated attack were the admissions by Neal Rauhauser (the hatchet-man associate of Brett Kimberlin) that he had arranged counsel for Naffe. Rauhauser proudly trumpeted his silly but telling hope that the lawsuit would accomplish his (and Kimberlin’s) long-held goal of costing me my job.
Above: Neal Rauhauser and Nadia Naffe, 2012
(It did nothing to dispel my suspicions about the political nature of this lawsuit when a lawyer who was suing James O’Keefe took over the litigation — after the judge had issued a ruling that expressed extreme skepticism about whether Naffe could show damages in excess of $75,000. Usually, lawyers don’t get too excited about lawsuits that the judge has said are unlikely to be profitable.)
Basically, I had put up a publicly available court document from PACER, and soon learned that the lawyers who had uploaded it to PACER had not redacted it, as they were supposed to have done. So I took down the link to the document a little over an hour after the post was published. I redacted the document, and put it back up. And Nadia Naffe literally made a federal case out of it.
The meat of the Court’s ruling dismissing her claims is contained in the Court’s tentative ruling, which was confirmed by a short minute order on Friday. As Ken did, I want to emphasize two comments that the judge made in the tentative ruling concerning the manner in which Naffe and/or her attorneys “played fast-and-loose” with my language. Here is the first:
In paragraph 39 of the FAC [First Amended Complaint] Plaintiff quotes Frey as saying the following: “You owe [O’Keefe] @gamesokeefeiii a retraction. A big one. You’d better issue it promptly. [A threat made as a Deputy District Attorney].” FAC 39. The Court may consider the text of Frey’s actual statement in connection with a Rule 12(b)(6) challenge. See Marder v. Lopez, 450 F.3d 445, 448 (9th Cir. 2006), Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 688-89 (9th Cir. 2001.). Notwithstanding Plaintiff’s use of quotation marks, the language “[A threat made as a Deputy District Attorney]” does not appear in Frey’s actual comment. See Frey Decl. (Docket No. 40), Exh. KK, at 266. The Court would consider issuing sanctions against Plaintiff and/or her attorneys for the contents of paragraph 39. [emphasis added]
They inserted words inside quotation marks that I had never said. The second comment by the judge:
In her Opposition brief, Plaintiff characterizes this as “Frey issu[ing] a direct threat against Ms. Naffe with Frey stating that he intended to investigate Ms. Naffe for possible criminal misconduct.” Docket No. 53, at 11:18-21. Again, sanctions may very well be in play for Plaintiff’s (and/or her counsel’s) willingness to play fast-and-loose with the language that is actually at issue here. [Emphasis added]
One other observation I would like to emphasize from the judge’s tentative ruling concerns Naffe’s claim that she was having trouble finding employment because of what I said about her. I present the judge’s response without comment:
As for those interested in the facts of the case, the reader needs to understand that when the case was dismissed, the case was still in the stage where we were challenging the pleadings. That means that, to a large extent, the judge was forced to accept even untrue allegations as if they were true. For example, when Naffe falsely claimed that I blog and tweet on the taxpayer dime, my lawyers were forced to accept that as true for purposes of our motions, even though it is false. It is a very frustrating position for a person to be in — but such is the plight of a civil defendant.
There were, however, limited ways that we were permitted to dispute some of her allegations in certain contexts. Towards that end, I provided a declaration that is probably the best document for you to read if you are interested in the underlying history of the case. My declaration explains, among other things, how I began writing about Naffe, and how I obtained and posted the deposition transcripts.
My declaration also provides proof that contradicted several of Naffe’s assertions in her complaint and declarations. For example:
- Naffe claimed that I had not obtained the deposition transcripts from PACER, but had somehow obtained them though resources available to me as a DDA. Not so. I provided proof, in the form of records from PACER, showing I had downloaded the transcripts from PACER on the same Saturday that I posted them.
- Naffe claimed that I had issued certain posts “as a Deputy District Attorney.” Not so. I provided printouts of those actual posts in which I said in the body of the post that I was posting as a private citizen and not a DDA.
- I provide proof in the declaration that the link to the publicly available deposition transcripts containing Naffe’s Social Security Number was removed from the post about an hour and 17 minutes after it was first put up. (Indeed, if Ron Brynaert had not publicly tweeted the fact that the transcript contained her Social Security number, it could have been taken down and redacted with nobody being the wiser. But for some reason Brynaert — who has also complained about me to my workplace, and has spoken of punching me in the nose and taking a “shit” on my wife — decided to make this information public rather than emailing me privately. Draw your own conclusions as to why.)
- Naffe claimed that she had been intimidated by my March 2012 post linking to her deposition, and that she made her blog private as a result. Our 12(b)(1) reply provided proof that her blog was still public in May 2012, and that she was blogging that she had not been intimidated by my post.
Let me provide you specific quotes on that last point, because they are telling. Here is her sworn declaration from November 19, 2012:
In other words, as a result of the actions of MR. FREY, I was in fact intimidated into not giving evidence of O’Keefe’s wire tapping to the County. . . . As a direct result of MR. FREY’s harassment, and in order to prevent further harassment, I have been forced to make private both my Twitter account and my blog at nadianaffe.com. Though I desire to, MR. FREY has made it impossible to freely participate in online speech. [Emphasis added]
Naffe’s claim of harassment revolved around a post and other tweets that I published in late March 2012. That’s when she was supposedly intimidated into making her blog private and not reporting evidence of a crime. Yet we showed that her blog was still public in May 2012, when she published a post at nadianaffe.com that said:
Patrick Frey may have believed that posting my Social Security Number and medical records online to his blog, in retaliation, would intimidate and stop me from telling the truth about O’keefe [sic], chill my First Amendment right and dissuade me from coming forward to report a crime committed in his jurisdiction. Though, what he has accomplished is precisely the opposite. These two civil servants, both deputy district attorney’s [sic] in Los Angles [sic] County, in the past were able to bully and harass private individuals, with impunity. But their patent on intimidation and retribution expired when they came to me. The Frey’s [sic] are the poster children for the type of rampant corruption Carmen Trutanich, Alan Jackson and Danette Myers [sic] have each spoken out against. (Exhibit LL at 268-269.) [Emphasis added]
If you read only one document from this latest round of filings, I would read my declaration, mentioned above. If you read a second document, I would read this one: the reply brief on the anti-SLAPP motion. This is one of my favorite documents in the whole lawsuit. It describes Naffe’s suit as “a classic SLAPP – a lawsuit calculated to retaliate against expression that makes the plaintiff angry.” Page 2 lists various statements of hers that we had demonstrated to be deceptive and/or misleading. Pages 11-12 set forth the specific context for my remark that Naffe was “full of false allegations.” It also opposed her seeking discovery by making these points:
Plaintiff has boasted that she will use the discovery process in this case to harass Mr. Frey on unrelated issues including (1) how Mr. Frey and his wife afforded their house; (2) an unrelated incident in which Mr. Frey was the victim of a false police report; and (3) the identity of an unrelated anonymous blogger.
It’s impossible to list all the deceptive and/or misleading aspects of Naffe’s lawsuit in a single blog post. Hopefully, this gives you a sense of why we considered it to be a meritless attack on free speech — and why the judge dismissed the case and threatened Naffe and/or her lawyers with sanctions.
Once again, I want to reiterate my praise for my skilled and principled attorneys: Kenneth P. White (Ken from Popehat), and Ron Coleman (from Likelihood of Confusion). Without people like Ken and Ron standing up for free speech, this country would be a poorer place.
Tell me again why I should care about these 8th string cretins ?
Neo (d1c681) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:55 amlawfare cash for harvard trash is the fundamental underpinning of the american way
something has gone terribly wrong
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:00 amCongrats and kudos.
It would have been nice if the Judge had gone one step further and actually sanctioned them for perjuring themselves.
JD (55343e) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:37 amWonder who paid her ACORN lawyer …
JD (55343e) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:37 amA case the judge says isn’t worth over $75K (and that has already been dismissed once) is not the type of case lawyers usually drool to take on contingency.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:40 amBesides warning the world that this sort of abuse goes on and is forwarded by this vile collection of characterless goons, and showing what is necessary to end their power to make a claim and be believed, they seem to be allied with a man who should not walk free on this earth, who set bombs off all around Speedway Indiana.
One bomb was dropped off in a knapsack in the parking lot of a highschool on game day, and like in Boston, built to shred people with shrapnel. And this shredding was managed. One victim lost a leg and his other leg was permanently maimed. That victim’s wife was also seriously injured.
If Nadia didn’t know about her pal pictured above and his connection to Kimberlin then, she does now. Why this is ducks with her, why she would choose to benefit from anyone who would have anything to do with Kimberlin, is anybody’s guess. Mine is that she is a somewhat cracked attention grubber with no place else to go.
SarahW (b0e533) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:46 amJust added this paragraph to the post for background, for those who don’t remember how it all got started:
“Basically, I had put up a publicly available court document from PACER, and soon learned that the lawyers who had uploaded it to PACER had not redacted it, as they were supposed to have done. So I took down the link to the document a little over an hour after the post was published. I redacted the document, and put it back up. And Nadia Naffe literally made a federal case out of it.”
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:48 amAs a generaalization: You’re really OK – or safe from legal persecution – as long as you have judges, or other officials able to act without going to a judge – who are not in the pocket of litigants.
(and you also know what to do)
Here’s acase where a college was somewhat in the pocket of a complainer or somebody, and it took a long time to get that person cleared.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510.html
But you didn’t have this kind of biased tribunal so it did get dismissed.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:48 amCurious linkage she made in her claims — that if it weren’t for Patterico, she’d have testified in a way that would have put an end to the dastardly O’Keefe.
Seems to me that what she’s really done is invented a reason for not telling in court the story the left wanted to hear.
Rob Crawford (04f50f) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:19 amWhy hasn’t Rauhausen, Naffe, and Kimberlin been declared Vexious Litigants and sanctioned as such?
PCD (1d8b6d) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:47 amCongratulations to you and and a wonderful job by your attorneys.
Maybe Cyrus Sinai can take her case…. (Kidding, kidding.)
bridget (84c06f) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:47 amNice!! I love it when a judge gets it right. Sanctions would be well- deserved, even if only to help defray the court costs of her frivolous suit. Congratulations.
LASue (2b0ffb) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:59 amPatterico, Naffe appears to have a much stronger case against Ron Beynaert than she ever had against you. After all, his tweet called attention to the fact her Social Security number was available online.
Since Naffe can’t find a real job maybe she can use her experience to SLAPP Beynaert around and squeeze rent money out of his sorry hide.
ropelight (2286db) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:31 amWell, all I can say is what a Jehovah’s Witnesses once said to me when he rang my doorbell, “You know Ma’am there is an awful lot of wickedness in the world.”
Katie Scarlett (2a2f6e) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:43 amWell, the truth is the court records (a lawsuit she brought, a motion she made which turned her deposition into an exhibit) in question destroyed the reliability of an already very weak and internally inconsistent story.
She had no friend in friends who pushed that story without vetting it, and understanding its weaknesses.
SarahW (b0e533) — 4/22/2013 @ 10:14 amButthurt, she still has it. Probably has more of it. It’s worse when it’s self-inflicted, as she’s learning. She’ll sue again, I’m sure.
htom (412a17) — 4/22/2013 @ 10:37 amIndeed! Patterico removed and redacted very quickly after he was made aware of the issue. I remember that distinctly. Yet PACER had the SSN up until last week. The bad guys kept pointing this out because they wanted to do the opposite of mitigating damages.
As Sarah said, Nadia’s friends aren’t. They use mentally troubled people as weapons for ‘conflict cupid.’
I’m just glad Patterico has finally made it through this round victorious.
Nadia could refile at the state level, but I think she may have to pony up more money to do so because she’s a plaintiff from another state. In my opinion, that’s why she’s going to appeal at the federal level. IMO, the point is not to win; the point is to drag out costly litigation forever. I wonder how much of this is even up to Nadia. Once someone cooperates with Neal and the other thugs, how does one call it off without them betraying all the details the sucker needs to stay private?
Dustin (2da3a2) — 4/22/2013 @ 10:48 amNow Seth Allen says he wants to “Socratize” me.
I hope that only means forcing me to drink hemlock, and not forcing me to listen to him.
Another fine mess you got me into, Patrick.
Ken (2e87a6) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:36 amAre these dipshits planning to appeal this in a local court venue instead?
Kaitian (133e3c) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:43 amGot to ask, who the hell is Seth Allen?
Kaitian (133e3c) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:43 amKen — I’d be concerned that his message is the result of auto-correct, and would be worried about something else.
LOL.
shipwreckedcrew (ff598b) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:46 amKen #18 – relax ! I am sure that all Seth means is that we wants you to “play ball” … what could possibly be wrong with such an innocent idea innocently expressed by such an innocent ?
Alasdair (82864f) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:51 am(sigh)
” I am sure that all Seth means is that
wehe wants you to “play ball””We hatesss it when we makesss typosss, doesssn’t we, preciousss !
Alasdair (82864f) — 4/22/2013 @ 11:55 am“The wheels of Justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine.”
mojo (8096f2) — 4/22/2013 @ 12:09 pm@18 Ken — I think he means that he wants to ask you leading questions until you want to drink hemlock.
htom (412a17) — 4/22/2013 @ 1:43 pmAny chance of Ken and Ron recovering fees from these Vexious Litigants?
askeptic (b8ab92) — 4/22/2013 @ 1:50 pmSome thing that might really hurt.
whuuump!
as the dust settles over a federal court room-some where and thelitigant peals her trampled face off the floor after ther judge stomped THE vexis out of her…..
E.PWJ (1cedce) — 4/22/2013 @ 2:30 pmno more cell phone comments
E.PWJ (1cedce) — 4/22/2013 @ 2:40 pmIt’s refreshing when the good guys win one.
Birdbath (716828) — 4/22/2013 @ 3:17 pmAgain, congrats on the win. You were fortunate you could be represented pro bono. Imagine if you had to pay for this.
Steve57 (da9e0e) — 4/22/2013 @ 3:42 pmGlad to hear this is no longer hanging over your head.
I am confused as I read somewhere that Naffe was once a self-proclaimed conservative Republican and an associate of O’Keefe. Is that correct? Is there a place to learn more about this change of heart?
I found this link but I am not familiar with the source. http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/152325-trials-of-nadia-naffe/
WarEagle82 (2b7355) — 4/22/2013 @ 4:31 pmCan you post an address where I can send money to support the plaintiff?
Gary Thomas (ef20ad) — 4/22/2013 @ 4:34 pmOld MacDonald’s Farm
Colonel Haiku (139480) — 4/22/2013 @ 4:41 pmTingley, Iowa EIEIO
Okay, so all this pre-dates the BK story but eventually intersects with it…
Geez, if I saw this on a soap opera script I would have said it was too unrealistic! Fact is stranger than fiction…
WarEagle82 (2b7355) — 4/22/2013 @ 4:49 pmWarEagle – she did work for Team R a long while back, then sued them, prior to her time with O’Keefe. Nothing from there forward suggests conservative. And she was late to the BK game.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 4:59 pmGary – care to explain why she should have prevailed?
JD (55343e) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:04 pmWaste of taxpayer funds by an exempt employee — a highly-compensated professional who spends far too much time on inflammatory political commentary instead of his job
Gary Thomas (ef20ad) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:20 pmSo, Gary, prove it. Nadia couldn’t.
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:27 pmOh, you are one of them.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:29 pmWaste of taxpayer funds by an exempt employee —
Let us unpack all the nonsense in this. First, that was not what the lawsuit was about. Second, since you are going to accuse him of a crime, do you care to offer evidence of same? Third, since you wish to fund Ms Naffe, you are kind of dumb if this is your rationale, since that is not her claim to pursue.
a highly-compensated professional who spends far too much time on inflammatory political commentary instead of his job
Again, care to offer any evidence for this allegation?
Kthxby
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:33 pmGary – do you think it was proper for her to sue others based on nothing? Do you think it was appropriate for her to lie in her claims? Do you think she should have been sanctioned for same?
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:35 pmthat was some giant ‘Squirrel’ about the size of a womprat.
narciso (3fec35) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:38 pmI forgot to add:
“Hi Neal!”
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:44 pmPatrick wasn’t the one who filed the lawsuit, which really was a waste of taxpayer funds.
I’m sure you have facts to back up your assertion. Or do you tell lies as a habit?
Chuck Bartowski (ad7249) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:07 pmthat was some giant ‘Squirrel’ about the size of a womprat.
Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/22/2013 @ 5:38 pm
Painted Jaguar: A “womprat” you say… is that the result of a wombat and swamp rat playing a trick on a Tasmanian Devil?
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:25 pmPainted Jaguar, do you have any friends who are viscachas? I met one recently in the high mountains of Peru.
elissa (09631c) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:40 pmOne thing I like about this website is that about once a week, I have to look up a word that someone else uses. This week’s word is viscachas.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:45 pmDRJ, oddly, this time it wasn’t a word happyfeet used …
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:50 pmTotally different from vicunas.
nk (875f57) — 4/22/2013 @ 6:55 pmRon Brynaert is having a Twitter freakout, posting a collection of numbered comments about this post and about me, many (if not most) of which are complete crap.
He is not worth responding to point by point, but allow me to choose one point to soundly refute, because it relates to my wife: Brynaert’s defense of Naffe suing my wife. Brynaert says:
That is just absolutely false. 100%.
It’s clever the way he does this, too, because people who don’t focus on details might remember this wrong. When I posted a transcript of Naffe’s testimony in New Jersey on a harassment complaint against O’Keefe — which is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DOCUMENT from the deposition transcripts from her lawsuit — I used a Scribd account. As I have previously explained:
The mechanism of how this happened is not really important. The important thing is, EVEN IF Naffe and the “Rauhauser trolls” thought my wife had posted that transcript, it was NOT the transcript that Brynaert claims, but rather a transcript that tended to contradict certain of Naffe’s claims about the barn incident. Even if my wife did post that transcript, which she did not, how could that possibly justify including my wife in a LAWSUIT?
But cretin Brynaert misreports the facts about that, and cretin Qritiq retweets it, and both of them want to justify Naffe having dragged my WIFE into litigation with no basis whatsoever.
One more tweet from Brynaert pisses me off because it also concerns my wife:
Here is that entire “very scary” post.
“Very scary”? I guess if you picture being shot at by my wife, it would be scary to look at those pictures — knowing she is able to put that many in the 10 ring from 75 feet.
Why nutty cretin Ron Brynaert pictured himself as a target of my wife’s shooting, though, is anyone’s guess. I just showed you the post. Two pictures of the targets, and two lines: “Not bad for a first-timer, huh? . . . Not posted: a very attractive picture of her holding the Glock 9mm she used.”
I’m not responding to the rest of his crap but his tweets are filled with distortions and misleading material. Watch for the lack of specifics, such as when he claims I “appear to” blog and tweet on company time — or when he claims he “begged” me not to call him. Never will he provide a scrap of actual evidence. He just throws out garbage and Qritiq retweets it.
It’s a disgusting display. Anyone who falls for his “You can trust my statements because I criticize both sides” shtick is a sucker.
Here endeth the rant. This single comment alone should be worth about another 40 distortion-filled tweets from Brynaert later tonight or tomorrow.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:00 pmNo, what’s “scary” is an obviously mentally disturbed cretin wearing a hat that lauds a convicted bomber.
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:05 pmAnd yes, I know it’s a waste of time, and counterproductive, even to acknowledge the guy’s existence.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:09 pmPainted Jaguar: Ah, Elissa my dear. MD has friends who lived in the high mountains of the Andes in Peru, near Machu Pichu, where the skies are clear, the condors fly, and the Mennonite farmers grow the best coffee in the world (so MD’s friend said).
But my paddy paws have never felt Andean stone beneath them. At those heights I would feel about the same as a Snow Leopard near the deep, dark, turbid waters of the Amazon, totally miserable.
But MD did look up “viscacha” on Wikipedia* for me, and they are cute little buggers. It would be a shame to encounter one and have to eat it.
*I haven’t found a keyboard that works with my paddy paws, no matter how much I practice with my dear mummy’s encouragement. And while Dragon naturally Speaking has come a long ways with the human voice and human languages, their offering for Jaguar lags far behind.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:10 pmBut it’s another opportunity for me to admire Mrs. P’s shooting from that post.
Honestly, pretty good stuff.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:10 pmAs for Gary Thomas: he’s a drive-by. Count on it.
Nobody ever substantiates claims like that. They just say it and move on.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:11 pmI am shocked, shocked I tell you, that loony ronbryn is losing his marbles. Again.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:16 pmHmmm, I think we know why Brynaert’s freaking out. He fears renewed interest in solving SWATing’s.
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:18 pmPainted Jaguar: My dear mummy, ever so patient and kind with me (as she flicks her tail), sighed and said she wished those cubs had something better to do than bother poor Patterico. He needs his sleep to be a good public servant. Since they were so concerned about how well he was doing at his job I would think they would know better.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:19 pmRon, like most of the freaks on the other side of this saga, has more than a few issues.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:20 pmGood news. Justice has been served. My impression from the linked sources is that by saying “sanctions may very well be in play,” the court was essentially inviting a serious motion to award them, and under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and other applicable rules and laws, they certainly appear to me to be amply justified here. They could & should include an award of attorneys’ fees for the defendants; but collecting upon such an award is often problematic, especially if the sanctions are only awarded against the offending litigant (and not jointly against her attorney(s)). Nevertheless, this result is by any objective and informed standard an upper-deck home run.
Beldar (05297c) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:36 pmRe: post #44… Damn straight. There will be a reckoning in this life or the next for all of this malevolence and aberrant behavior.
Colonel Haiku (fc1c1f) — 4/22/2013 @ 7:58 pmOne might hypothsize that Ron Brynaert is ignorant of the distinction between PACER and Scribd, or too dim to understand the difference between them, or too dishonest to admit he does if pretending he doesn’t can serve his oily little narrative, or some combination of the three. But really, it’s not fair to expect him to be accurate, or honest, or have a grip on reality, when any moment he’s going to seize the Pulitzer by breaking the biggest story of the century: The Weiner Conspiracy.
As to Seth Allen: meh. Maybe it’s not hemlock. Maybe he wants to demand $400 and throw a multi-year snit when I won’t send it, because he’s entitled to money from whomever he asks. Or maybe he needs a ride to electroconvulsive therapy or something. It’s kind of tedious wondering actually.
Ken (1ff322) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:37 pmThose are most of the possibilities, Ken.
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:48 pmIf Qritiq just stops by Ron’s place and lets him take a dump on her maybe he’ll calm down. It’s a thing with him.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:25 pmIf Patterico and Ken had just given Seth Allen $400 to do what he knew he had to do, ie. show up for Court, none of this would have ever happened. Patterico and Ken are to blame. And teabaggers.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:50 pmSeth does not blame Ken because Ken was not part of that discussion. I did offer $100 towards travel expenses, and so did Liberty Chick. That’s $200 from people who did not even know Seth because we believed he was getting a raw deal from Kimberlin.
And if he had not waited until the last second, $200 would have been plenty. What really galls him, I suspect, is that he knows in his heart of hearts his irresponsible decisions are what got him into this mess.
He thanked us so profusely in his emails from that time for offering as much help as we did.
And he was right to thank us. Now?
I’ll stop before I say something I will regret.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:56 pmAs said, it seems like sour grapes to me with Seth Allen.
He could have done something when he had the chance, and when he decided to try to do something it was too damn late.
So he blames someone else rather than accept responsibility for his own actions.
Deep in his heart of hearts I think he knows this and it tears him up that he didn’t take advantage of the offered help when he had the chance.
Monitor (a3d2eb) — 4/23/2013 @ 3:37 amShockingly, Gary Thomas never provided any proof of blogging or tweeting on the taxpayer dime.
Cretin Bill Schmalfeldt once published something at Breitbart Unmasked that purported to “prove” I had tweeted on the taxpayer dime. It was crammed with charts and looked very official, but the analysis was, um, rather lacking. It claimed that the day after Thanksgiving is not a holiday, when it is; made zero effort to account for times I was off, etc. Plus, I tried an experiment: I made a single tweet at the beginning of the month and then ran charts. There were numerous contradictory charts claiming that single tweet had been published on different days, at different times, etc.
I half-hoped they would use Schmalfeldt’s charts in the lawsuit.
Ultimately, Schmalfeldt ridiculously claimed I tweet on the taxpayer dime — yet never produced one single solitary tweet to support that claim. Not even one.
Much of the initial complaint seemed to rely on a Pastebin collection of my tweets in which the timing of the tweets was consistently off by hours — perhaps because the automated program believed I was in Tehran, where I had placed myself in solidarity with the freedom fighters in Iran.
These people constantly make references to my blogging or tweeting on taxpayer time but never produce examples. That seems like a deliberate tactic, no?
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/24/2013 @ 6:54 amI think this case is about boundaries. Naffe took it on the chin here, but she was incensed that Frey posted her dirty laundry, for example her psych meds online and used his legal expertise to poke tons of holes in a case between her and O’Keefe.
So even if it was not found to be illegal, or as Frey admits, a careless or honest mistake that her unredacted data was part of it, she still resented it so much she tried to cause him grief in return in whatever way she could. Note he tries to blame her pals for pointing out he had made this mistake when they should have kept it low key. Fail there.
I can see from Frey’s side that if she had no chance of winning, she should not have tried at all. I’m with him on dragging the wife in to this – did I read that she was more liberal than hubby? Maybe that’s why Naffe went after her.
But suing for spite and intimidation is a tool that corporate America uses on a daily basis – using legal firepower and lawyers on staff to BURY their rivals or competition, who have to go broke to defend themselves.
The examples are endless, we can look at sovereign citizens depleting small town legal resources by filing hundreds of frivolous case, or union members in right to work (for less) states who are not-so-secretly anti-union activists suing the pants off everybody to overload the “free” legal services of the union. Monsanto v. family farmers is pretty distasteful, suing them for having GMO seed they never wanted, but contaminated their fields after traveling downwind.
So Frey’s legal free speech is his blog, and Naffe’s WAS her lawsuit, as long as it lasted. But Frey was trying Naffe in the court of public opinion, a nasty thing to do – why not let O’Keefe fight his own battles, or just email him your bullet points privately. This whole thing blew up because Frey was being a giant “yenta”. Having legal expertise and putting it online is bullying, plus the potty-mouthed comments, though legal were excessive.
In all it’s two nasty right-wingers getting down in the dirt for all the world to see. I just hope Frey doesn’t become like Lenny Bruce and make his whole blog about his court case.
Mahalia Cab (4d5f4b) — 5/6/2013 @ 10:27 amMahalia – you need not continue to prove you are an imbecile. That has been proven, beyond the shadow of any conceivable doubt.
JD (b63a52) — 5/6/2013 @ 11:33 am“Naffe took it on the chin here, but she was incensed that Frey posted her dirty laundry, for example her psych meds online and used his legal expertise to poke tons of holes in a case between her and O’Keefe.”
Mahalia – No legal expertise was required to expose the glaring holes in Naffe’s allegations against O’Keefe, they were there for the world to see. If Naffe did not want the world to see the record of her prior trial which contained the information you describe, she should have been smart enough to attempt to get the public record sealed or redacted. She was not.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/6/2013 @ 12:47 pmMahalia, with her usual brazen disdain for facts, ignores that Nadia never attempted to get the public PACER deposition transscript redacted.
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