I’m not sure what I can add to the chorus of voices here on RedState condemning what Brett Kimberlin and his friends have done. Erick got the ball rolling today by posting about the relief fund for those Kimberlin et al. have harassed, and then he proceeded to show us how people like them operate, particularly through “swatting”. Dan McLaughlin then elaborated on the tactics in his post, followed by showing us how Markos Moulitsas refuses to condemn the violence from his own side (it’s a giant “screw them” to us and those affected). Repair_Man_Jack, meanwhile, writes about why civility fails where these people are concerned, concluding:

So I conclude by telling Brett Kimberlin that control over our safety and our right to speak freely is not his. It never was and it never will be. America is a Democracy. He is free to disagree with everything I think, all that I say and most of what I fundamentally believe. That does not entitle him to harass, threaten or deprive me (or Patterico) of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

*- People like Kimberlin are why I blog under a psuedonym.

I don’t think I can offer much else on top of this. Still, I do just want to offer the following bits of advice where people like Kimberlin are concerned. Though most of you ought to already be aware of these things, I think they bear repeating.

Be Loud, Be Fearless, Be Legion, Be Relentless.

Be Loud: You’ve got to speak up. Add your voice to the chorus, even if you don’t have much to say, even if you are just preaching to the choir. Find a way to talk about these stories. They need to be heard, and we’ve learned time and time again that the media cannot be trusted to report them. That’s where we come in.

Be Fearless: Don’t let their threats get to you. Don’t be intimidated. Patterico hasn’t, and he is one of the biggest victims of Kimberlin’s attacks. Seriously, if you haven’t read his post, do so. It really is a harrowing account, but it’s something we have to know about. It’s a risk we take for speaking up, and though we might not all find ourselves victims of phony slander charges or swatting, we still face our own risks. It’s part of the territory for bloggers and activists. Patterico isn’t the only one on the receiving end of Kimberlin’s harassment. Aaron Walker (aka “Aaron Worthing”) is another, and so is Stacy McCain. Let’s not forget Liberty Chick, either.*

Be Legion: There is safety in numbers. They can get one of us. They can get two of us. They can’t get all of us, especially if we are working together. That’s why Lee Stranahan has made May 25th “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day”. Mr. Kimberlin and his friends don’t like it when a person points out the truth about them, so let’s all do it together. They can’t get all of us. Michelle Malkin is one of the bloggers leading the charge. She’s got a post up detailing just who has added their support to this day.

Be Relentless. Don’t stop. You have to keep talking about it. We all have to keep talking about it. We need to keep pushing the story until people take notice, and we need to keep pushing it until it’s met a proper resolution. Notice how Kimberlin’s threats and harassment haven’t stopped the people I’ve already mentioned here from stopping, even though Stacy had to leave Maryland because of the former’s actions.

I’m not sure what else I can say here, but you’ve got to remember those four things. Not just here, but with any story, especially when there’s a threat of retaliation. As Ben Franklin said upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Or, to quote General Robert Nivelle at the Battle of Verdun, “Ils ne passeront pas! (They shall not pass)”.

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Ted Cruz is firing back at David DewCrist.

Ted Cruz is firing back at David DewCrist.

It is all but a given that the GOP will take control of the Senate this November. I’m in no way suggesting that we be complacent, rather we must redouble our efforts to elect true conservatives who will begin to restore sanity to our government.

But it is a worthwhile exercise to begin to contemplate the make-up of the next GOP Senate caucus, and what it portends for the furtherance of the conservative agenda.

The GOP now has 47 senators.  I believe that all GOP incumbents will win reelection. Also, the GOP will flip the following SEVEN seats:

Florida, Missouri, Montana, N. Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin.

In addition, I believe we can take one or two of the following states:

Michigan, Minnesota, W. Virginia, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Mexico

But we won’t assume any of these. Thus, the next GOP caucus will consist of  54 members. It will take 28 to elect the next majority leader.

So let’s divide the caucus into two camps, and let’s call them the “New Breed” and the “Old Guard”  based on their voting histories and establishment ties, and their perceived willingness in the past to “just go along..” ( including loyalty to McConnell)

Old Guard: McConnell, Blunt, Cornyn, Shelby, Murkowski, McCain, Chambliss, Isakson, Grassley, Roberts, Collins, Brown,  Cochran, Wicker, Graham, Alexander, Hatch

Total:  17

New Breed: Thune, Barasso, Sessions, Boozman, Rubio, Crapo, Risch, Kirk, Coats, Moran, Paul, Vitter, Johanns, Heller, Ayotte, Burr, Hoeven, Portman, Inhofe, Coburn, Toomey, DeMint, Corker, Lee, Johnson, Enzi

Total: 26

We can likely assume that the 7 Dem seats that will be turned over will also fall into the “New Breed.” And  the seats of the four retiring GOP senators, from  Texas, Indiana, Arizona, Nebraska, will all be filled by conservative “New Breed” Republicans.

That makes the “New Breed” total 26 + 7 + 4 = 37

Now, not all these races are going to go as I’ve predicted here ( though we could actually win MORE seats) and some I have classified as the “New Breed” may be loathe to go against McConnell, but hey, it doesn’t take the CBO to tell us that 37 is a LOT MORE than 17.

And I suspect that McConnell, and a few other senators, like DeMint, are also doing the math every day.

To be blunt, if McConnell doesn’t stand up to Reid at every opportunity, for the rest of this term, and in the all-important, and inevitable lame-duck, then McConnell will NOT be the next Majority Leader.

No “partial” repeal of Obamacare. No aquiescing on radical judical appointments. Absolutely NO increase in the debt ceiling unless we get everything we want as far as spending cuts and tax reform. Force votes on entitlement reform. THE WHOLE NINE YARDS.

If McConnell won’t. then we will find someone who will. In my list of 37 “New Breeders”, there is almost a simple majority ( 27) of the caucus by itself who can force the issue.

I can easily see someone like  Ron Johnson ( who famously told his fellow GOP senators that  “..he didn’t come to DC to ‘get along’ he came here to fix things..” getting exasperated enough to go to DeMint and say that he will run against McConnell unless DeMint will do so.

In short, my fellow conservatives and Tea Party members, there’s the potential for mutiny in the air, and the total shake-up, and possible eradication of the GOP Establishment that for so long has been part of the problem, and NOT the solution.

And one last happy thought  to ponder:

If you think that 2012 looks bad for the Senate Democrats, well, 2014 looks even worse.

There are 20 Dems up in 2014, and 13 Republicans.  Every GOP seat looks quite safe, even if a few senators choose to retire.

Not so for the Democrats:

I will flat out predict that at least SEVEN will announce their retirements:

 Landrieu, Baucus, Hagan, Johnson, Warner, Rockefeller.

Some are guaranteed losers. Other might win a difficult, but expensive race, but why, WHY go to all that trouble just to sit in the MINORITY Dem caucus. Far better to retire and earn the BIG lobbying $$$. And here are a few more Dems are are potentially vulnerable..Levin, Lautenberg.

Can you say 60 seat GOP supermajority in 2014?

( And you wonder why the Dems are all of a sudden willing to consider ending the filibuster…now you know)

Personally, I don’t know if Mitch McConnell has the cojones for the battles ahead these coming months.  We will find out, and more importantly, McConnell will find out if his troops will allow him to lead them.

Right now, I’d say it’s even money either way.

Listen to the voices on this youtube video at Lee Stranahan’s website and tell me if they sound similar.

What you are listening to is the recording of someone pulling what is known as SWATting; someone spoofing your phone number and calling in a false report to police with the caller ID tracing back to the victim of SWATting. This time, the call was done at the expense of blogger Patterico in July of 2011.

Here’s the frightening story

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Listen to the voices on this youtube video at Lee Stranahan’s website and tell me if they sound similar.

What you are listening to is the recording of someone pulling what is known as SWATting; someone spoofing your phone number and calling in a false report to police with the caller ID tracing back to the victim of SWATting. This time, the call was done at the expense of blogger Patterico in July of 2011.

Here’s the frightening story

Read More →

The dishonesty and bias of the left-wing media is so pervasive that at times it almost overwhelms my ability to quantify it. Reading a story today on Reuters, I was reminded once again how all encompassing it is. Media dishonesty is insidiously invidious  and oh so slyly subtle that often even people who expect to find it don’t see it immediately.

This morning I followed a link from RealClearPolitics to a story by Reuters entitled ” White House contest looms over Virginia Senate race”.  The story is broken into three sections, the first of which is a reasonably evenhanded accounting of the presumed Tim Kaine – George Allen match-up. Then that old cancer Media Bias begins to show itself as the second section is subtitled “MORE MODERATE THAN OBAMA” and begins:

While making the best of his ties to his fellow Democrat and appearing with Obama at a rally in the state capital Richmond, Kaine is also working to establish himself as more moderate than Obama.

So here we have a subtitle that states that Kaine is “more moderate than Obama” and then we are informed that Kaine is “working to establish himself as more moderate than Obama”.  How convenient and synergistic for Reuters and the Kaine Campaign.

Now let’s look at the second subtitle that heads the final section:  “ARE REPUBLICANS TOO FAR RIGHT?” it blares and then we are told:

Many Virginians, particularly women and younger voters, have soured on what they see as a Republican shift to the far right after a bitter partisan state budget fight and a Republican-led effort to force women seeking abortions to undergo invasive vaginal ultrasounds.

While its grudgingly admitted that “Republicans scored big in elections in 2009, 2010 and 2011″ we are nonetheless assured that  “women and younger voters” see a shift to the “far right” after a “bitter partisan” budget fight and a GOP effort to “force women” to “undergo invasive vaginal ultrasounds”.

Here is the same paragraph with the extraneous words left out. In this manner you can get the full and robust flavor that the writer wants to impart:

women younger voters soured Republican far right bitter partisan fight Republican force women invasive vaginal

I hope Patrica Zengerle has a spit screen for her monitor. Those evil Republicans want to “force” women to have ultrasounds yet when Obamacare is briefly referred to in the article there is no mention of Democrats wanting to “force” everyone to buy insurance.

Finally Zengerle winds up her little screed with this dollop of whipped cream in the form of a quote from Quentin Kidd:

“He’s the quarterback, and who doesn’t like the quarterback?”

So you see George Allen is just a quarterback, a good looking but dumb jock, and THAT’S the only reason he’s even a threat to that fine moderate Tim Kaine. This is the continuation of the media fed narrative that conservatives are all dumb knuckledraggers while liberals are incredibly able and intelligent.

It has been one stumble after another since President Obama officially launched, some would say restarted, his reelection campaign three weeks ago.  With the Dems’ Bain mutiny making a shambles of the what was going to be Obama’s main attack on Romney,  this may have been Obama’s worst week ever.  The  RNC  produced the following  video that makes that point:

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It has been one stumble after another since President Obama officially launched, some would say restarted, his reelection campaign three weeks ago.  With the Dems’ Bain mutiny making a shambles of the what was going to be Obama’s main attack on Romney,  this may have been Obama’s worst week ever.  The  RNC  produced the following  video that makes that point:

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The American political system (and Democracy in general) are ways by which potentially violent conflicts over deeply-held personal beliefs can be waged in non-violent fashion. When Democracy breaks down, or certain people think they can take a short-cut, the inevitable result is a reversion to violence. This has been coming for a long time. It may well get worse. I blog under a pseudonym for a reason.

(HT:RMJ 25May2012)

I understand Brett Kimberlin. I grok where he and his ilk get their motivation and why they ultimately fall off the beam. There is a process by which civility breaks down and Democracy fails. I meant what I said above about Democracy. At its core, our democratic system is a dispute arbitration process that aims to stem violent conflict over our deepest and most fundamental disagreements. It only works until one party to the conflict stops willingly accepting unfavorable results from the arbitration.

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