Different Day, Same Shit.

Swatting is a practice that involves calling 911 from either a spoofed number or a blocked number and relaying information that would get the police to a home in force.

Calling a SWAT team on someone is a pretty vicious prank, especially considering the countless instances where contact with a SWAT team has meant death for many innocent individuals. Imagine this practice being used to silence bloggers, journalists and other influential people.

Now imagine this practice being used in a carefully-planned scheme to generate sympathy and big headlines in favor of conservative bloggers while allowing that same media apparatus and popular opinion to rip the "perpetrators" a new one. It's similar to the shenanigans performed by James O'Keefe against ACORN and the recently departed Andrew Breitbart and crew against Shirley Sherrod. Michelle Malkin, Chris and Dana Loesch both hoped the "Twitter Gulag" scandal would help gin up some sympathy points for them and other right-wing tweeters, to no avail. In other words, it's hard to approach this without wondering if this isn't just another scheme cooked up along those lines.

Conservative bloggers Patrick Frey and Erick Erickson were both "Swatted," supposedly as part of a feud between the two and political activist Brett Kimberlin. It's also worth noting that Kimberlin served time due to his role in the infamous "Speedway bombings." The undercurrent is that a guy who is despicable enough to wantonly injure and possibly kill innocents is surely capable of "Swatting" two guys who pissed him off. The expected response is to rally behind Frey and Erickson regardless of their political affiliations. However, it also helps how Kimberlin aligns himself to liberal causes, so conservatives also get to castigate both Kimberlin and liberals in general.

Make no mistake, "Swatting" is a legitimate problem that could get people hurt and possibly killed. And it's something you wouldn't expect conservatives to play games with. But as Matt Osborne puts it:

So we know how these types of games get played: right wing activists make the news they want to see with a sinister stunt, the right-wing blogosphere goes ballistic, spends weeks roaring about their victimization, and their yarns get days and days of mainstream coverage. Only later, when said media finally examines the facts, do we find out that we’ve been had once again.

And it seems we may have been had. Again.

In the midst of finding out more about "SWAT-Gate," I ran across this interesting tidbit of information from, of all things, a pastebin. And because of its source, the smart thing to do is to take the following with a rather large grain of salt until it's been properly verified*:

Mike Grimm is the Congressman from NY-13 and a former FBI undercover agent.

Grimm attempted to extort a Jewish congregation on the mafia stronghold of Staten Island, threatening to use his law enforcement contacts to “make it difficult for them”.

The congregation's rabbi approached former Congressman Anthony Weiner for assistance. This led to an extortion investigation for Grimm.

Grimm made contact with Brandon Darby and employed he and a small group of smear artists including Lee Stranahan and John Patrick Frey aka Patterico.

Anthony Weiner was pursued by a variety of real and synthetic female personas through 2010 and the spring of 2011. He was successfully smeared and forced to resign one year ago today.

Mike Stack was left holding the bag for the smear. He refused to drop out of sight, so he was swatted by Brandon Darby in order to silence him.

Ron Brynaert was investigating. They needed a bag holder for the swatting and Ron was the lucky winner, being set up via a phone call with Frey, purportedly for an interview, but in actuality it was purely to put him on the phone and engaged at a specific time.


Don't let the Weinergate rabbit hole distract from these simple facts. Follow the money and keep in mind a dangerous, complex hit job like this would only be entrusted to a few committed, hardcore operatives like Darby, Frey, and Stranahan.

Brandon Darby is a former FBI informant who currently spends his time as a conservative activist. Lee Stranahan is a conservative blogger who also hosts his own podcast. The following is audio from Stranahan's show when he took the call of the purported "swatter" who set the whole thing up (taken from Osborne's post):



And here is a video comparison of Darby's voice along with the voice used in the "Swatting" calls, including his appearance via phone on Stranahan's show:



The voices are remarkably similar and rather thinly disguised. There have been calls for a proper voice analysis to be made by law enforcement officials, something that Darby would be pretty reluctant to have happen if he was indeed behind all of this. In addition, there hasn't been any concrete proof that intended target Brett Kimberling was actually behind any "Swatting."

Meanwhile, fingers are being pointed at former Raw Story editor Ron Brynaert for being the one behind the "Swatting" calls, as the following video attempts to prove:


Brynaert's voice doesn't quite match up to the "swatter," although it would be very easy to simply assume it did on first listen, without Darby's voice to compare with it.

As for Mike Grimm, he's found himself under the wheels of the Romneymobile™ in addition to dealing with the fallout from his attempted shakedown.

So, is "SWAT-Gate" the end result of an elaborate and ultimately successful attempt to "ratfuck" Anthony Wiener out of a job for dropping a federal investigation right into the lap of a fellow representative who attempted to extort and intimidate the Shuva Israel congregation, who then turned to Wiener for help? And in addition to cleaning up loose ends, does "SWAT-Gate" also provide a sensational story for a bunch of aspiring Breitbarters to plaster up on mainstream media for weeks on end until the results of the inevitable round of fact checking come through?

It seems far-fetched and it's very easy to take "SWAT-Gate" at face value without reading into the motivation behind it. At any rate, it's gotten the desired reaction from across the blogosphere, one of shock, dismay and an expressed desire to see the designated target go down in flames without making sure it's the right one in the first place.

* http://sibob.org/wordpress/?p=10634, http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/fbi_confirms_agency_tipped_off.html

There's a lot of dissatisfaction from the liberal end of the blogosphere over President Obama's performance, largely focusing on what he has yet to accomplish and why he seems so eager to stay on the good side of Wall Street and bend to every single conservative whim. I doubt any liberal or "progressive" elected the man just to see him waffle away and soft-pitch a Democrat majority in both houses, however thin and DINO-plagued it was. Then again, I didn't expect fellow Dems to pout and sit at home back in 2010 while the GOP got its second wind and its mandate to be as obstinate and asshole-ish as they could be.

I bet it pained liberals and "progressives" to see the man they placed so many hopes and dreams upon dismiss his ordained role as a black FDR, LBJ, reverse RWR and MLK, Jr., all rolled up into one half-black "Magic Negro™" and instead play a thoroughly centralist conciliator who gave much, much more more than he got. And it has to piss people off to see the GOP playing from a position of strength while Obama and his fellow Dems choose to portray what liberal and "progressive" voters see as sheer, craven weakness.

There's a lot of focus on what Obama hasn't done or what he could have done. He chose not to go on the warpath against the Bush administration, killing the dream of having George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney on trial somewhere for several counts of reckless assholery. He chose not to dump every single Bush-era appointee he could find. He chose not to push for universal healthcare, full stop, knowing what good it did Bill Clinton over a decade ago. He chose not to unilaterally pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, or embark on a grandiose FDR-type plan to revitalize the economy. Not letting the Bush tax cuts was a bad move that made Obama's brand name mud in the eyes of many liberals. Pushing Wall Street to be nice and stimulate the economy from the top-down with job openings and R&D expenditures, while letting the banks get off damn-near scot-free for running the economy into a telephone pole had to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouths. Not to mention he practically scuttled a "teachable moment" following Henry Louis Gates' unfair arrest - after recoiling from the shitfit pushed by conservatives, he backed down and invited the asshole who arrested Gates over to the White House lawn for some brewskis. And he didn't even use the "bully pulpit" the way we wanted him to.

The man's caught flack from Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornell West for not stumping for the black community as much as they thought he should. He's catching flack from so-called "emotional progressives" and ideological pure liberals for not being liberal or "progressive" enough and allowing the "Overton window" to be dragged miles toward the right via pickup truck. Jane Hamsher and the "Firebagger" crew have written him off as defective goods and people within his party seem to be preoccupied with practicing their latest "DINO" dance moves and other acts of self-interest. Ralph Nader and Ron Paul are both joining forces to mount a primary challenge against him, something he could do without.

He's been accused of being some sort of corporate Manchurian Candidate for Wall Street, preferring to drive the conservative opposition bonkers with his mere presence, causing Democrats to vote for him a second term as an alternative to froth-mouthed reactionaries and fundamentalists. He's been considered worse than having an actual Republican in office. His "blackness" has been called into question, with people wondering if being raised by a white woman in a thoroughly unconventional environment left him "crippled" in some way.

DADT is finally over and done with, but I have a feeling people are still so pissed off at Obama for not being who they imagined him to be that this small consolation won't be nearly enough to put them at ease. The new jobs bill doesn't appear to do much of anything to help lower the nation's high unemployment rate and Obama appeared to allow himself to be pushed around by the whole debt ceiling "crisis," putting the nation's relative "financial stability" at risk.

Despite all of this, I haven't done what most liberals and "progressives" have done so far and just walked away from supporting the president, and I won't be among the various Democrats who decide to stay home or vote third-party in protest. This isn't some affirmation of slavish devotion to the president or some sort of declaration of unending loyalty, something a lot of people accuse black Democrat voters of. And it's not about how things could be "worse" without Obama in office. It's about recognizing the most pragmatic position to take when faced with a number of other unsavory choices. Scratch that -- it's about not being a fairweather friend to your own crew when things aren't going the way you want them to go or when you didn't get what you wanted.

Of course, that may sound a bit glib, as though I'm telling liberals and "progressives" to suck it up and stick by Obama, but I'm not. This is some rather complex shit I'm trying to unpack, so allow me to unpack it as neatly and cleanly as I can.

Of course I see what Obama hasn't done, but I've also seen what he's managed to accomplish despite a completely recalcitrant legislature and fairweather support from fellow allies. He's kept his head while the Tea Party eroded the sanity of the GOP and left Wall Street scared shitless. He bagged Osama Bin Laden, someone whom Bush became bored with in favor of playing in the Iraqi sandbox. He picked up the American auto industry, dusted it off and helped it gain a new lease on life. And he passed something resembling health care reform. It's not perfect, but at least it's a starting point.

I'm not about to follow some of my fellow bloggers and completely dismiss the man because I didn't get that unicorned pony and a stack of $100 bills shoved under my pillow. I'm not here to say "it's gonna get worse if there's no Obama or [add liberal leader here]." And I'm not about to shit this post up by saying I'm a "realist" or some other such self-congratulatory bullshit. I'm just saying how I feel about the president and why I'm not going to follow the current trend of taking the piss on him.

The man can't simply step over the House and Senate to enact laws he and other Americans want to see. Like it or not, he has to work within the confines of his duties as President and the checks and balances that govern the executive and legislative offices. You can't simply can't push for the man to offer unilateral top-down reform. If you want your liberal agenda to be heard and enacted, you gotta start out from the bottom, work your way up and keep working:

Go out and work for the candidates in the primaries who fit your bill. Show up at their offices and do shitty, dull work for them. Trudge through the rain canvassing on an October Saturday when you’d much rather be at home. Send them some money. If you don’t like who’s running, run yourself.

On an ending note, I bet seeing liberals and "progressives" hit this sort of "rock bottom" is giving conservatives a new sense of resolve. If this keeps up until Election Day 2012, disillusioned liberals and an unconvinced centralist swing base will give conservative voters enough clout to push any one of the 3 stooges (Perry, Bachmann, Romney) into the Oval Office. That's something I'd rather not see, if I can help it.

The above comes courtesy of Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, who recently enacted a new curfew law in response to the rise in "flash mobs." No, not the spontaneous and unexpected gatherings of people who proceed to do some crazy and off-the-wall street performance just for an audience reaction. Instead, we have packs of street toughs and miscellaneous thugs walking around, looking for someone to mob on. Unfortunately, these packs just happen to consist of young black men.

That above quote bothered me for a number of reasons. First, because you don't see other ethnic groups grappling with the problem of a select few "damaging their race." Whites couldn't give a fuck about what their redneck cousins do, because the actions of those rednecks don't "damage" the entire white community. You see several Hispanic groups stereotyped, but there's no major outcry about how the antics of a small, criminally minded group of people are somehow damaging the image of Hispanics nationwide. But blacks are somehow stuck with being a monolithic group that collectively lives and dies by the actions of a select few within their ranks.

Second, because I feel this all plays into the desire of whites nationwide to see blacks chastised for this behavior by one of their own. There's something about black leaders castigating their own ranks that give whites the warm and fuzzies, along with a sense of justification about the way they feel about blacks overall. They really want to see the whole "cleaning up one's own filth before talking about the filth of others" thing, possibly because they're sick of blacks constantly pointing out the dirt and debris piled up underneath white America's pristine rugs.

Third, because I can't help but think why any single black person should be held to being an "ambassador" for their own people on a constant basis. To this end, blacks are encouraged to be on their best behavior at all times, because one slip-up can set back all of the "good work" they've done towards building up their image in the eyes of a predominately white America. It causes more successful blacks to actively bemoan their downmarket brethren, causing them to ask, in a sense, "why you niggas gotta make us look bad?"

Playing "ambassador" every time blacks interact with whites becomes tiring and frustrating. Having to navigate past the preconceived notions held by whites and their expectation of blacks to somehow disprove those notions during every interaction with whites provokes anger and frustration. I understand why there are scores of black men and women of the older generations who are perfectly content with not interacting with a single white soul -- it's just one more aggravation that they could do without in their old age.

Yes, the "flash mobs" in their current incarnation are a bad thing, and I'm glad the mayor's taking steps to put an end to the violence behind it and keep scores of troublemakers off the streets. But I can't help but be a bit disturbed by the above phrase. Mind you, this wasn't the only thing that was said at Mount Carmel Baptist Church that past Sunday:

The line that jumped out for me was more sweeping. He told young people, and I'm paraphrasing here: don't blame white people if you can't find a job, if you show up with tattoos all up and down your arms, your pants hanging down, your hair uncombed and your shoes untied. Don't blame anybody else, Nutter said, because you look crazy!!

And finally, he slammed criminal offenders in the community, young and old, when he said, "you have damaged your own race."

Practically everything else I agree with. The gangster/thug ensemble with tattoos layered over tattoos and pants that are only held up with one hand and a prayer isn't a good look for anyone, let alone young black males that are already considered "threatening," even when they dress up in suits and ties. The whole context behind the above is for young black men to start cleaning up their own image before others do it for them. I just haven't seen other ethnic groups ask the same of their young men in a manner that carries a load of racial baggage and underlying messages.

This comes courtesy of Booker Rising and one "Mr. Ref".

As I understand so far, the gentleman who gets his shit kicked in was supposed to look after the business while the proprietor (the gentleman executing the shit-kicking) was away on unknown business. Instead, the gentleman elected to conduct illegal activity (drug sales) out of the establishment. When questioned about it, the gentleman seemed to effect relatively little remorse. And apparently that was all the proprietor could stand.

Part of me says this ass whipping was long-coming, thanks to the braided-up gent jeopardizing this man's livelihood and liberty by slinging dope in the man's shop. Part of me says this man shouldn't have lost his composure and instead just shown young buck the door, with a strong warning to NOT come back, if he valued his life.

At the end, a little kid asks if he can go outside and see his daddy finish up the beatdown. And his mother responds "No, you don't want to see that baby..."

No one should, but it happens.